


The Lost Christmas Adventure

by SpectralNyx



Category: Phan, Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, M/M, One Shot, Road Trips, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 21:39:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14173956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpectralNyx/pseuds/SpectralNyx
Summary: A simple quest for a Christmas tree turns into a personal search for happiness and meaning as life conspires to disrupt the flow of every best laid plan and rattle every preconceived notion Dan harbors about himself and their lives together. He realizes nothing is ever really simple, neither the questions or the answers, but there’s a subtle, moving grace in the smallest details that makes what would otherwise seem overwhelming and untenable something altogether different than he previously imagined.In which, Phil wishes for a white Christmas and a real evergreen; Dan wishes for transparency of self, sustainable contentment and authentic expression, and they both receive it, if not quite in the manner they expect.(aka: a not so festively appropriate story to celebrate this happyeasterfool’sday with.)





	The Lost Christmas Adventure

So early it's still almost dark out.

I'm near the window with coffee,

and the usual early morning stuff

that passes for thought.

 

When I see the boy and his friend

walking up the road

to deliver the newspaper.

 

They wear caps and sweaters,

and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.

They are so happy

they aren't saying anything, these boys.

 

I think if they could, they would take

each other's arm.

It's early in the morning,

and they are doing this thing together.

 

They come on, slowly.

The sky is taking on light,

though the moon still hangs pale over the water.

 

Such beauty that for a minute

death and ambition, even love,

doesn't enter into this.

 

Happiness. It comes on

unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,

any early morning talk about it.

 

― Raymond Carver, happiness

 

❧

 

This time, in another time far removed from the first, it begins simply, in tacet, with the heartfelt wish for a white Christmas. All visible omens appear favorable. The overcast skies illuminated by the certain slant of light Emily Dickinson once attributed to the cathedralic weight of winter afternoons are full of grey swoops of clouds, ominous in their resemblance to the boiling froth of an ocean frozen in time, heavy with the assurance of rain soon to crystallize into snow if atmospheric conditions allow. The glacial edge of the wind whipping past commuters clutching scarves to their throats as they rush along their daily migrations to the underground and overground lends a hand to help the process along. There’s an accompanying brittle note in the air a discerning synesthetic might associate with the smell of frost and cold and every breath trickles from open mouths in puffs of steam with a touch of a sting on the inhale like a drink of water after biting into a mint sweet. On the heels of this, a palpable density of expectation settles overhead, a soft lull despite the unabated flow of traffic as if the foundations of the city itself were bracing for impact with equal parts excitement and caution. Even among the most hopelessly jaded veterans of life’s daily ebb and flow, here amongst convoluted traffic patterns which always seem to flow and never ebb, the idea of a white Christmas still holds a magical allure. Perhaps because lately, most winters in London trended towards less eventful weather highlighting the usual suspects of light mist and scattered showers- the humdrum hallmarks of business as usual in England. The collected heat of commerce and humanity all jostling for space under the electric silhouettes of housing estates, office buildings and development projects turned the city into an island of a climate just cold enough to bundle up for and just warm enough for snow to melt before it had a chance to stick. Modern progress with its buzzing street lights and hovering smog clouds meant snow in the proverbial ‘Big Smoke’ had long segued from a guarantee into a meager chance of a possibility.

The weather reports add salt to the wound with a dull pronouncement engineered to discourage any lingering traces of hope despite the chill in the air.  
“Amounts of snowfall remain variable throughout the area with some places highly unlikely to see any precipitation at all,” says a voice on every newscast. “We may see a light dusting with areas further north of the city seeing an accumulation of perhaps 1-2 inches but that will quickly give way to rain as the evening progresses.”

An air of resignation follows this observation until it becomes little more than a footnote in what many already know to be old news.

Phil subconsciously expects the same despite his best efforts to wish for something better so it comes as a refreshing thrill of a shock when he notices the small fluff of snowflakes drifting down onto the skylight above his head. At first he registers the development with muzzy confusion, his mind caught between the tangled threads of a bright idea and an interesting daydream leagues away from his current reality. As his thoughts take a moment to sync up with his eyes he mistakes the dots of white stippling the air for bird poop and he frowns as he wonders why it’s taking so long to touchdown in the customary Pollockian splat across the glass. His daydreams shift at once to make room for pondering what combinations of bird seed and gutter debris could result in such lightweight poop and whether or not this might be the mark of some obscure epidemic, like an avian version of 28 Days Later, ushering in an apocalyptic era of rage fueled pigeons with an appetite for tourists, before true realization hits an instant later. When it does, he’s so excited he forgets both himself and where he is and nearly bites off his dentist’s fingers at the knuckles when his jaw involuntarily clenches with the force of his joy. Immediately, the droning chant of gum line measurements filling the room cuts off into a strangled high pitched “ _ouch!_ ”

Mortified, Phil snaps to attention, not without first speckling his t-shirt with a tiny spray of spit and foam as he recovers from the shock of re-entering earth’s orbit back to the sterile white walls of his appointment room. A small collection of glinting metal scalers and curettes prepared on the rolling tray next to the reclined head of his chair comes into focus along with the crisp linen folds of a lab coat and the stricken expression on the face of the person wearing it. Apologies burst forth at once, followed by a warm flush of embarrassment and rejoining apologies on the part of his dentist. It’s an automatic response of British propriety Phil is aware of only in hindsight, second in importance to more exciting developments happening outside.

  _Snow! It’s snowing! Snow!_

 His thoughts catch in a repetitive track pointing out the obvious but it’s accompanied by a deeply ingrained, visceral joy- an instinctive pull back to a time when he was born in a month steeped in frost and frigid cold, as if an integral part of his DNA had rewired itself to make him winter’s child through and through, causing him to be born a month earlier than his expected delivery date in February. The season in general held great affinity and meaning for him and if asked why Phil would struggle to explain every nuance of a feeling too great to describe the way most powerful and good memories were always subjectively biased, best appreciated firsthand and not as a bystander. Even now, though the snow ends up amounting to nothing more than a few scattered clumps shivering together on the glass in a brave attempt to keep their shape, it evokes a Pavlovian response so powerful he imagines he can almost taste the mince pies, feel the tinsel, smell the cinnamon- and it’s just like that, caught up in a small whirlwind of sensorial rapture accompanied by the faint strains of Mariah Carey playing on a loop in his head, he’s struck with another repetitive beat of an idea more persistent than the first:  
_We should get a real Christmas tree this year!_

Half of the sudden inspiration is brought on by the need to compensate for the rapidly disappearing signs of snow on the street as he heads back home from the dentist. The pavement retains a delicate coating of white like confectioner’s sugar, but as he looks on through the window of his taxi, stalled behind a procession of more taxis and buses and livery trucks to afford him a prolonged view of the world beyond the realm of bottlenecked traffic, the snow quickly dissolves under the thin sheet of rain beginning to plink and clatter on the roof. It’s then, in a burst of quiet but pronounced indignation, that he decides if having a white Christmas was beyond his control then buying a real Christmas tree was not.

The other motivating factor behind this decision, much more persuasive than his disappointment in Mother Nature, is the loss of the much endeared ‘rave tree’, a reminder of Christmases past spent in a high rise apartment in Manchester where he and Dan had first toiled around the construction of metal poles and plastic branches to create a humble example of an evergreen which had gone on to become an unwittingly symbolic testament to the ongoing construction of the foundations they’d laid for both their professional and personal lives together; cementing a moment in time when they had established their independence as flatmates and colleagues in a humble but memorable apartment with its alluring kitchen bar and oddly picturesque views of Strangeways at sunset.

They’d later decorated the tree with an extravagant display of madly strobing fairy lights they were almost certain might alert the government to investigate on the grounds of harboring either a UFO or an illegal rave, thus christening it with the name every viewer would soon come to recognize as fondly as their own. It had survived the remainder of their time in Manchester and their subsequent years in London only to become an unintended casualty in the move to another more modern flat without the peril of gas leaks or crumbling ceilings to haunt them when Phil discovered they’d accidentally left the tree packed into a remote corner of a closet in their old flat, prompting the landlord to give it an abrupt send-off to an anonymous landfill.

 Its absence, though briefly regrettable, suggested an opportunity and Phil, ever a proponent of trying new things, thought now would be a good time to act on it. Owning a real tree itself wasn’t a novel event in his life, not when he’d spent a good deal of Christmas mornings as a child running around a lounge filled with the scent of fresh pine needles he and his brother would often find prickly remnants of lodged in the carpet months later. He was an adult now, dealing with all the tedious responsibilities adulthood implied with its tax forms and bank statements and Very Important Meetings with managers and accountants, but the holidays drew out the part of his soul that remained unapologetically childlike, unhindered by either the demands of bureaucracy or housework and today that part of him demanded another Christmas complete with a real tree. They had donated old clothing and dispensed with old branding; started drafts on their laptops and flipped to blank pages in notebooks to begin planning a new stage tour that would bring them to places farther flung around the globe than they’d ever been before. In the spirit of fresh beginnings then, why not forget the artificial tree and buy a real one instead?

“Because nobody sells one within walking distance and we don’t have a car to go and bring one home in,” Dan says when Phil repeats the question with a brand of wild eyed enthusiasm that makes Dan wonder if perhaps the oral hygienist might have accidentally tripped a nerve somewhere deep in a molar to send Phil off into a contained frenzy a bit more ecstatic than his usual excitement for the holidays.

Just a few moments before Dan had been idly watching the flickering play of light and sound making up another commercial break on the TV without paying attention to the subtle appeals of pathos for him to buy, buy, buy until Phil had appeared in the room like a lightning strike, filling it at once with the enormity of presence which usually surrounded him whenever he was eager to tell Dan a story or share another sudden flash of inspiration that couldn’t even wait for him to take his jacket off. Dan can’t remember having heard either footsteps or the weighted thud of the front door closing to announce Phil’s arrival, but he recovers from the shock of both Phil’s sudden entrance and impromptu suggestion with barely a flinch, a natural side effect of the years he’d spent living with the many puckish, lateral manifestations of Phil’s personality, in turn leaving him well accustomed to expecting the unexpected, at least where Phil was concerned. He only pauses long enough to mute another replay of a commercial whose ‘DRIVE SMUG’ motto he’s heard enough times to become lodged in his subconscious for months to come like a subliminal mosquito he can’t swat, before settling back on the couch with a veiled smile as he waits for Phil’s inevitable counter to his proffered dilemma, certain all avenues of alternate possibilities are already being considered.

When Phil was keen on an idea, especially as keen as he appears now, fairly radiating enthusiasm in visible waves of heat Dan imagines he can almost see, the technicalities of figuring out the how’s to getting something done were only temporary deterrents even if arriving at the right solution sometimes proved to be a tricky process of trial and error which didn’t always go to plan. Like when his love of devising gameshow style competitions complete with forfeits to play with friends once backfired after losing a chopstick challenge he and Dan had filmed for the gaming channel, leaving him to suffer under his own devised penalty of eating the brittle remains of what were supposedly salt and vinegar flavored crickets. It was simply the nature of the risk which came with doing anything however, a risk Dan suspected was an aspect of the creative process Phil enjoyed the most, especially as it applied to the small thrill of embarking on what had never been done before and waiting to see how it would all unfold, content even in the face of potential failure to know he had at least tried. It’s this pronounced mark of resilience and unpretentious approach to life which Dan quietly admired about Phil and he finds himself once again caught up in a warm crush of sentiment balanced somewhere between awe and amusement as he watches an answer occur to Phil in a flash of undeterred confidence.

“What about getting a tree delivered? You can order just about anything online now and have it brought to your house. Well, except for snow I guess…” Phil wistfully glances at the window of the lounge where he’s been stood like a sentry for the better part of ten minutes surveying the lack of interesting developments occurring in the sky other than a restless accumulation of clouds with nothing better to offer than a monochromatic filter to an already grey afternoon.

“I don’t know about that,” Dan says. “There was one time when I was five my dad filled my room with that kind of snow they use on movie sets so I’d literally wake up to a white Christmas.”

“Really? That sounds incredible!” Phil looks as if he’d like to ring up every production studio in the UK to see if they could send someone over with an industrial fan and a lorry full of artificial snow to annihilate their flat.

“Yeah, you’d think it was incredible and thinking back on it now I guess it was, but child version me ended up bursting into tears and later apologizing for the mess Father Christmas had left in my room.”

“Oh.”

Dan shrugs. “I mean, it was a nice attempt all things considered. Just wish I’d been able to appreciate it more at the time when I wasn’t cynical about corporations turning the holidays into an obvious consumer trap of stress, overspending and manufactured happiness.”

At this description Phil only rolls his eyes and laughs. He’d long grown accustomed to Dan’s eloquent if pessimistic analysis of the sincerity of the human condition as it applied to the greater inescapable influence of capitalism and politics. He was rarely, if ever, bothered by it. In fact he often found himself agreeing on certain points, though he usually preferred listening to Dan’s arguments than participating in them.

“I can see you’re well into the festive mood.” Phil draws the blinds on the monotonous gloom of the view outside and finally abandons his post at the window in favor of plopping into an inelegant heap on the opposite end of the couch.

Dan moves automatically from his previously sprawled out slouch across the seat cushions to gather himself into a cross-legged posture to allow space for Phil to comfortably sit. It’s a quick accommodating gesture enacted with all the reflex of breathing and blinking, the way their personalities most often aligned just so to allow space for each other to exist as who they were naturally without fear of ridicule or recrimination from the other- the way Phil could freely express his excitement over the ‘consumeristic traps’ of short lived trees and Dan could freely settle into overtures of sociopolitical observations about the holidays, all while humoring and encouraging the other between fits of shared laughter and self-aware quips. Despite this refreshing balance of a dynamic, Dan avoided romanticizing it as anything resembling ‘perfection,’ the word itself being too inadequate to answer for all the effort they’d both invested over the years to make what they had work in the first place. Small conflicts and internal storms of doubts and brooding darkness existed in the spaces left between words that sometimes missed their mark or hit the mark too squarely. In these hollowed dips and valleys of misunderstandings and abstract frustrations, at times too overwhelming to work through together in the heat of the moment, they both had days where the atmosphere stretched tense between them and harmonious balances were overturned completely. But these types of days, greyer and poorer than the one outside, were the exception rather than the rule. From Manchester to London, from one flat to another, from stepping over Phil’s socks and fishing Dan’s visa out of a bin over and over again, experience had taught them both how to get along when their quirks collided; how it was better not to go to sleep on an argument; how it was easier to ask and to explain instead of letting silence say all the wrong things; how sometimes simply being there despite the times when silence was a necessary part of recuperation meant a world of difference, no matter if the process of ‘being there’ manifested as nothing more than bringing over an unexpected, indulgent breakfast in bed. Now, nine years later, despite the natural drawbacks that came with being flawed and being only human, they had learned how to make space for each other in more ways than one.

“You know I still like celebrating Christmas,” Dan says, watching with raised eyebrows as Phil suddenly moves to wriggle the jacket off his shoulders with a startled air as if he’d only just realized he hadn’t taken it off after returning home. “It’s just certain parts of the season are impossible to ignore.”

“Maybe the scent of a fresh pine tree could help you forget.”

“…You’re not going to let this go are you?”

“Nope.”

Phil smiles, bright newly polished teeth on display in an exaggerated grin and Dan laughs under his breath, completely resigned at the idea of spending the rest of the day scouring the internet to see if Uber might have a division in its fleet dedicated for tree deliveries.

Little over three hours later spent in studious contemplation of their laptops and though they manage to pull up a surprising number of hits for their query, they end up ruling out Uber and any equivalent thereof along with other companies whose service area stopped just short of the radius encompassing their flat. In the end they exchange amused glances over the final, vaguely alarming result of a Christmas tree delivery service advertising its long standing commitment to quality with the offered perk of a personal driver who would set up the tree inside a customer’s home while dressed in the appropriately festive attire of a Santa Claus hat and…

“A kilt.” Phil reads the order description aloud for a third time.

“That’s what it says alright.” Dan chokes the words out in a pained wheeze, his face slowly turning red from the effort of trying to keep his composure in the face of the unexpected hilarity of the moment.  “I’m sorry. That’s…amazing.”

“They don’t even give you the option _not_ to select it!”

At this revelation Dan’s resolve shatters and he abruptly dissolves into an unintelligible mess of laughter.

“This can’t be the only thing on here, surely.” Phil quickly scrolls down the page as Dan collapses sideways into the cushions beside him, still unable to speak past a coughing jag of giggles.

When a near ten minute search of fine print and backtracking pages yields no escape from kilt wearing delivery men Phil’s tremulous outburst of “ _why??_ ” makes the air leave Dan’s lungs entirely. When he manages to regain his breath through a lightheaded gulp for air he paws his way back to an upright position and spares another glance at the laptop’s screen and the displayed website’s picture of a man with a cheerful expression posing with a tree lugged over one shoulder like a cross between a model for L.L. Bean and a rugged Paul Bunyan, albeit with the addition of a bright red tartan kilt around his waist to match the bright red Santa hat on his head. In the realm of obvious marketing ploys Dan considers this one isn’t so bad. Phil however continues to have his doubts.

“It’s one thing if I weren’t going to be alone to handle this by myself, but you’re meant to be giving a talk at an event on the only available delivery date next week which leaves me with the task of coming up with a way to navigate this whole kilt adventure on my own.”

Dan, no stranger to the dilemma of how to approach the many unforeseen intricacies tangled up in social encounters, never mind house calls from the Highlander, immediately empathizes with the sentiment behind Phil’s anxiety, but he schools his expression into one of feigned nonchalance and decides to tease a bit of lighthearted fun out of the situation.

“What’s the matter, Phil? Not sure you can handle a glimpse of those meaty thighs on show?”

“Oh, I think I can handle them fine actually.” The immediate retort, low and heavy with open ended implications, ignites a small trickle of heat along Dan’s jaw. He says nothing to give it away, but Phil notices the quick flash of dimples that appear at the corners of his mouth as his expression minutely shifts like subtle tells to betray exactly where both their minds have gone. Phil’s instantly aware of the small game started between them and as always he’s more than keen to play along, but present events currently distract him from following up with something more pointed to tease the band of red on Dan’s jaw into a scarlet flush straight down his neck. The stock photo of the man in the kilt stares back at Phil a bit too intensely for him to concentrate on anything other than imagining every way a conversation between him and the personal driver would ultimately falter and fail.

“There’s nothing wrong with kilts. I think they can be quite flattering if I’m honest, but…” Phil pauses, eyes still uncomfortably locked with the displayed photo on his screen. “How do you begin to approach that in conversation??”

The dimples bracketing Dan’s mouth disappear as he recovers his veneer of nonchalance. “What are you talking about? It’ll be fine. You acknowledge it, he acknowledges it, we get a tree out of the deal, the internet gets you in a selfie with kilt guy- everyone goes home happy.”

Phil shakes his head. “How do you just acknowledge it? I can’t think of any scenario of small talk that doesn’t come off as weird in an already slightly weird situation. Do I ask if he likes wearing it? Do I ask if it’s breezy? Do I have to help kilt guy bring the tree up the stairs?”

 “Slow down, slow down. It’s not like he’s showing up in full bondage gear,” Dan says and fights back a cough as the winded pinch of hilarity settles in his chest again. “When Louise visits us wearing a skirt it doesn’t become the headlining topic in the news for everyone to comment on. Unless it’s like a beautiful design or something you’d naturally point out as being nice.”

“But it _is_ something you’d point out that’s what I’m saying!” Phil gestures at the screen with one flapping hand and Dan finds himself on the verge of losing his composure all over again. “We’re not talking about a typical piece of clothing worn every day, let alone by personal drivers dropping off Christmas trees at your house. It’s an obvious ice breaker meant to be a topic of conversation.”

“Good thing you’re the king of ice breakers. Awkward silences and tense standoffs don’t stand a chance against you.” Dan smiles wryly, but it’s tempered by a soft inflection of sincerity. “Or what? Are you second guessing the whole ‘let’s get a real tree’ decision on the technicality of a kilt?”

“No. Well…maybe a little. It’s like something I need in my life but also don’t want to deal with at the same time. This is exactly what I used to go through whenever we had people over to check the gas lines in our old flat. I’d spend the entire time wondering if I should be the accommodating host or get out of the way, only this time I have the extra social hurdle of a kilt to think about.” Phil settles against the backrest in contemplative silence, but suddenly goes rigid with another wide eyed realization.

“Oh god,” he breathes in a dull monotone.

“What?”

“It said on the day of delivery you can track your driver on the app. I’m going to be able to see kilt guy turn the corner to our front door.”

A lightheaded airy sensation hits Dan squarely in the center of his forehead as if a sip of soda had shot straight up his nose and he all but trembles with the effort to restrain another gust of laughter at the idea of Phil watching his phone as if he were tracking the descent of a catastrophic meteor instead of just the delivery of their Christmas tree. As it is, Phil stares back down at the laptop with owlish concentration and Dan can’t tell if it’s the backlighting of the screen or Phil’s own spiraling reservations that’s turning his face a few shades paler than usual, but Dan decides to relent the small game and offer something approaching helpful instead, though he remains as nonplussed as Phil about how exactly to handle things.

“You know social occasions aren’t exactly my strong point so I won’t be glib and say I’d be looking forward to it personally, but this is a quick one off meeting with a stranger you’ll never see again. And it’s for something fun besides.” Dan pauses. “Presumably. I don’t know how he feels about the company dress policy. You’d think the branches would chafe against his bare legs while he’s dragging the tree into someone’s house.”

“See? That’s the kind of question I’d need to know the answer to but wouldn’t know how to ask!”

“They’ve probably heard it all by now. I don’t think you’d lose anything by just giving in and asking.”

“I’d lose the sense of security I’d otherwise have if I _didn’t_ ask someone if they get rug burn from Christmas trees,” Phil deadpans.

“True. Sounds like the bad start of a kinky pick up line.”

“Dan…”

Despite Phil’s halfhearted attempt to warn him off Dan affects a suggestive bedroom eyed expression and sidles up against Phil’s shoulder, giving it a hard nudge. “Hey there, beautiful. Did you scrape your legs on that tree branch, because I can show you better ways of getting physical.”

A wall of dense silence punctuates this delivery as if every tenant in their complex including random passerby outside the building had heard and stopped to internally groan in disbelief.

They stare at each other for a beat - Phil with a forbearing quirk of an eyebrow, Dan with an exaggeratedly lewd grin - until the moment passes and Dan abruptly drops the act with a pained grimace.

“Yeah, no,” they both say at the same time in matching tones of embarrassed regret before giving way to laughter.

“You think anyone’s ever tried that,” Phil asks.

“What- icebreaker via unnecessary, unwanted sexual advance? Sure. Probably resulting in the personal driver arranging a personal visit from the police later. ”

Their laughter subsides and a palpable shift in the air comes between them, a backwards slant of momentum like a ship keeling sternwards as the atmosphere moves to match Phil’s mood when his eyes slowly travel back to the open tab on the laptop before him. Dan can almost see the vivid scenarios of terrific blunders and unsalvageable faux pas beginning to once again form in his head, the same melodramas of bad daydreams that also afflicted Dan whenever faced with situations where all projected outcomes seemed more dismal than he could manage. They both knew it was a trick, a bad mental mirage brought on by the natural subconscious fear of what was unknown and therefore outside of their control. By default this included the world at large with all its unpredictable variables where failure, embarrassment and regret were unavoidable constants. The complexities of the external collided daily with that of the internal and Dan had often wondered how it was that anyone barring yogis and monks could completely overcome these two conflicting states of being to function with any degree of peace when life seemed engineered by its very nature to disrupt the state of peace at every turn.

 _But we faced the worst of it with the best of what we had, even when it seemed to be nothing at all,_ Dan thinks. _Even on those days when I had less than nothing to give. Somehow, regardless of our worst misgivings, we made it._

Experience had taught them how to make space to live comfortably in each other’s lives and empathy had taught them how making space also implied a mutual attempt at understanding. To see things, if not through each other’s eyes, then through each other’s words, to take the most personal and private ones at face value – the kinds of words weighted with the profundity of what they would never share with anyone else or the kind of words demanding of more gravitas than a casual brush off; to apply compassion like a filter to edit out the subterfuge of snide interjections and snappish arguments their baser subconscious was always quick to supply in response. Humor helped. More so, the distraction of making each other laugh helped. Dan thought there was something cathartic in turning fear on its head and rendering it absurd instead; to turn existential fatality into a more comfortable joke with a punchline everyone could get in on; to make light of the awkward and weird idiosyncrasies of their lives where self-doubt might otherwise intervene to tear them down as it always tried to do. Phil was good at that. He’d made an art of turning doubt into laudable milestones. Fear promised stagnancy and for someone whose interior world was as vast and fluid as an Escher painting, more vibrant and strange and entertaining than even that, being stuck in one mood or place for too long usually meant Phil would find a way to break out of fear’s holding pattern from the sheer impatience which came from not being able to enjoy or accomplish all that he wanted to do when the worst obstacle to doing so was only himself.

 He and Dan shared similar reservations about meeting people and starting new things, but the way they internalized their dilemmas and the methods they devised to handle each one were different. Dan had come to understand Phil’s personal struggle with meeting people, whether they were delivery men or not, came from a place of not wanting the other person to feel bad; to make every encounter no matter how brief an equivalent exchange of comfort. As always with him, it wasn’t about pretense or showing off. It was about how to not leave the other person feeling underwhelmed or put off, either by him or about themselves. If he could simply make the other person laugh, if he could jolt them from the stuffy rigidity that came from the taking things far too seriously, just enough to make them smile at something he’d said, to feel welcome and at ease in his company, then that was enough.

Phil’s method was one of variation and mutual joy, to shake up the boring and the routine into more amusing, entertaining shapes; to give the world less of the crass and bitter undertones normally portrayed in every beak doomsday bulletin on social media advertising impending warfare, climate change and global disasters. ‘Laugh with me’ was the unspoken motto behind everything he said or did. “Look at things differently. See them lightly. Take them lightly. Take yourself lightly as well.” Within that simple refrain the world became a sandbox of his own invention, but he found it more amusing when he found others to play along with, to bend the rules and defy limiting perspectives to create newer, better ones. Yet, it was harder to play along when he could never be sure if anyone else was game to play with him in the first place. With Dan there had never been any question. Even when lost in the complex snarl of his worst thoughts, Dan’s presence and support remained an unwavering promise, one Phil had come to expect with the unthinking confidence of trusting the sun would rise each morning and rain would fall in some part of England each week. No need to tread lightly around the other when they both already knew where the boundaries were drawn. Sometimes toes were stepped on, literally and metaphorically, and sometimes the small things grated on each other more than was worth spending any time arguing about, but through it all they remained each other’s best comfort, best friend and best defense against all the internal fears their minds suggested when alone.

Sometimes however it was difficult to figure out exactly what to do when that subconscious voice appeared to be louder than their best attempts at humor and distraction as appears to be the case with Phil now. The mood wouldn’t stick with him for long, Dan knows. There were too many good shows to catch up on, too many dog gifs, bags of Haribo and nature documentaries far more interesting to Phil than reflecting all day on unforeseen pitfalls and social disasters. Dan had once heard someone describe Phil as canty, a Northern turn of phrase he’d thought at first sounded a bit rude until he’d discovered it meant lively spirited and cheerful which Phil generally was. So much so that on the rare occasions he wasn’t it seemed jarringly wrong. Anger didn’t sit well on his face. Neither did solemnity or annoyance. It was part and parcel of the human experience to feel a variation of emotions at any given time where happiness and cheer weren’t always appropriate or sustainable, but there was still something about seeing Phil out of his element, seeing him less than amiable or open, which seems terribly off, as if a small integral part of the universe had misaligned somewhere and needed to be fixed immediately. Dan is convinced it won’t take long for Phil to snap out of it, but in the meantime, as he hovers between indecision and worry, the atmosphere in the room settles like a dense coat on Dan’s shoulders, itching at the tips of his fingertips and prickling along the hairs of his scalp as he tries to find something better to say than an offhand quip to help dispel the heavy trudge of Phil’s mood.

Dan tilts his head back and pensively stares at Phil as if he could find the answer hidden in the lines and angles of a profile so familiar he could distinguish it by touch alone in a crowded room while blindfolded.

There’s nothing new he hasn’t seen before, nothing he hasn’t daily envied or admired or forgotten about all the small details he likes best about Phil even when his admiration expressed itself subtly through a teasing remark about the shape of Phil’s head or Phil’s ongoing commitment to a fringe he seems reluctant to ever part ways with. Yet, Dan finds himself captivated all the same as if they’d just met in person for the first time all over again, as if he were the same daydreaming gap year student who’d once stared with the same appraising reverence at Phil’s profile picture when the featured profile in question had contained a luxuriant mane of hair longer and fuller than it was styled now, back in a time when YouTube hadn’t yet become the corporate colossus it was today and too many miles between Reading and Manchester still separated them. The awe has its roots in physical attraction, from the lithe set of his shoulders to the high arch of his cheekbones to all the little things which transcended the socially accepted conventions of beauty, but there’s a sturdier foundation beneath the physical rooted in a stronger admiration for Phil’s unwavering spirit even in the face of the volatile entity that was the internet.

Phil had been in the game longer, forging a path on YouTube years before the idea had occurred to Dan to follow his lead. And it mystified Dan how Phil could handle it all, how he could compartmentalize and cope with the most insistent, troubling aspects that came with sharing their lives and words with strangers around the world. Strangers whose opinions, testimonials, confessions, insults, compliments, questions and demands crowded around them in stark font on every social media platform so that things like striking up conversations with delivery men in kilts should have been the least of Phil’s problems. The internet kept consistent tabs of every move they made, even those which were mere products of speculation and exhaustive guesswork. In equal turns, they were loved, they were hated; they rode the highs and lows of every rollercoasting critique. In exchange for free content, for transmitting creative expression to the crowd of faithful subscribers which grew incrementally every week, they received the unprecedented trials and rewards that came with the job of public figure whose creations and actions were subjected daily to the candid scrutiny of strangers. They became the starting point of crucial connections between people who would later become good friends or spouses, all because of a shared love for what he and Phil did.

They were given letters and sent emails about struggles with personal pain too complex for Dan to comment on, too profound for him to forget. He received meticulously handmade gifts at meet and greets, he hugged people with tragedies and triumphs the extent of which he could only guess at, he read notes of gratitude for the inspiration and encouragement a video had given someone and he witnessed the terrifying dynamic of crowd power when he saw YouTube comments inundated with a phrase from one of their own videos that his subscribers had decided would be the meme of the hour for months at a time. He was similarly astonished and humbled when a charity drive he and Phil had volunteered to sponsor attracted thousands of donors to meet the projected goal in just one day. They were the nexus of attention for millions of people and in such an eye of a storm anything was possible for better or for worse. Everything they did formed a Mobius strip of endless actions and reactions- create, transmit and receive- over and over in a delicate choreography between the audience and themselves, with no guarantee of how anything they created would ever be received. Managing it gracefully was an art Dan was still learning to understand, they both were, but Phil seemed less phased by it all. Whether it was because he internalized his concerns more often than Dan was apt to talk about it openly between them or because Phil had simply long ago adapted to the trickier aspects of what they did Dan could never be sure.

Phil remains oblivious to his rapt audience of one, all examples of hard won confidence forgotten as he remains immersed in whatever arguments his own thoughts are currently waging, miles away from reminiscing about first meetings, the dynamics of online careers or the privileges of familiarity that came with years of trust fostered between loved ones. There’s nothing separating him and Dan now. There are no awkward first impressions to agonize over - to wonder if Phil might like what he had to say when there wasn’t a skype screen or text message to filter out their most awkward moments like a cut between takes of a bad delivery. There’s no worrying over if Phil might like him at all, if he might be impressed or bored or indifferent. No need to worry after all when Phil had proven from the start he was usually the former and never the latter when it came to Dan. They were no longer strangers to each other, but now a wide gulf of silence throws up a barrier between them and Dan finds himself at a loss for how to break it, to convince Phil that as per his own oft repeated advice the impending meeting he’s dreading won’t go over as badly as his imagination depicts it to be. But there was only so much a pep talk could do if Phil wasn’t receptive to being convinced things actually would turn out alright. Usually Phil worked his way to that point eventually, wading in to a situation right at the moment when his impulse to flee the uncomfortable and avoid the potential for failure was stronger than his impulse to face it. Dan recognized a similar impulse in himself and called it procrastination, a snowball effect of delaying the inevitable until the last possible moment when the only options left were to get it over with in a headlong rush or avoid it completely. Dan wonders how to address it now in a way that won’t leave the rest of the evening defined by the distant look of worry coloring Phil’s expression, rendering it uncharacteristically severe and intense- a glaring difference to the electric charge of enthusiasm surrounding him before.

 Dan knows he isn’t obligated to address it. He doesn’t have to spend time caring about what was essentially Phil’s problem as it had been his own idea to get a real tree in the first place, but Dan did care. Intensely and often. What was Phil’s problem essentially became _their_ problem. The opposite was also true when Phil was the one doing the caring and Dan was the one surrounded in a foggy haze of muddled thoughts without an easy way out. Dan recognized this impulse as well, stronger than any mental fog or sour mood, and might have given it a name resembling something close to love if he’d been interested in applying any definition at all.

As Phil continues to idly scroll up and down the page, weighing the decision to place the order against his private jury box of ingrained misgivings, Dan decides at last the best middle ground of a resolution is to do nothing at all except reach over, pluck Phil’s laptop away and thwack the lid closed with a punctuating note of finality.

“Wait- what are you doing?” Phil blinks up at him, surprised, and Dan finds himself relieved at even that smallest change in his expression.

“You know what’s the best, scientifically proven remedy for any internal dilemma?” Dan asks as he holds the laptop out of Phil’s reach. “To slam a plate of takeaway in front of the TV.”

Phil lets out a breathy scoff and attempts again to retrieve his laptop and again fails. “Right. I’m no expert, but I don’t think that’s scientifically proven at all.”

“The collection of Dominoes receipts in the bin say otherwise. Speaking of, I could go for a saucy slice of pizza right now, unless you’re feeling more up for Thai or something else.” Dan continues to balance the laptop away from the halfhearted swipes of Phil’s hand until Phil relents and collapses backwards on the couch with a put-on sigh of exasperation, as if the idea of a freshly baked pizza or a piquant Thai curry didn’t appeal to the slight rumble gathering in his belly.

“Fine. You win. Let’s go with Thai then,” Phil says. “I liked that new place we tried the other day, though they still don’t have a way to order online yet.”

“Alright. Go ring them up. You know what I like.” Dan abruptly turns back to the TV and unmutes the volume.

“What? Why me? I’m the one with the internal crisis here.”

“Exactly. Therefore you’re the one who needs a distraction. If I do it, you’ll just get back to your staring contest with the stock photo of kilt guy. Besides, I’ve been comfortably sat here all this time and I can’t be bothered to move now.”

“Aw, how considerate of you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Dan watches from the corner of his eye as Phil shakes his head, still smiling and leaves the couch to find the restaurant’s menu and phone number on the back of the small brochure they’d saved from the last order placed. The sound of his footsteps trail down the stairs, intent on his food quest, and Dan patiently listens over the noise of another commercial break headlined by the now all too familiar ad slogan of ‘DRIVE SMUG’ blaring from the speakers until the measured hum of Phil’s voice speaking into the phone floats up within earshot. In a flash, he flips the laptop open again and navigates back to the payment information form. He barely finishes confirming the delivery date and credit card details in a clacking flourish of keystrokes when Phil walks back into the room.

“We’re all set for Thai curry in twenty minutes,” he says.

“And we’re all set for a Christmas tree in three days,” Dan throws back casually.

Phil pulls up short in the middle of reclaiming his space at the end of the couch and gives Dan a blank stare until his gaze slowly travels down to the open laptop in his hands.

Comprehension gathers like a storm cloud and a few seconds pass before a startled burst of realization slots the pieces of the puzzle together.

“What – Dan!”  
This time when Phil lunges for the laptop Dan lets him take it. Now that the order had been placed there was no need to keep it anymore.  A flustered series of interjections escapes Phil’s mouth and his face turns a blotchy shade of red as he looks at the delivery confirmation displayed on the screen. It’s not quite the mark of full-fledged anger, but the slight buzz of irritation Dan picks up on is close enough for him to quickly offer an explanation.

“Look, you always apply the ‘plaster’ method when it comes to things you want or need to do but still aren’t sure about so I followed suit. You want a real tree and this is the only company in our area able to deliver and the one thing stopping you from going ahead is a kilt and your own uncertainty. So I saved us both the trouble of overthinking the situation to death and ripped off the proverbial plaster.”

The beginning of what sounds like a protest forms on the edge of the next words to leave Phil’s mouth but before they can gather more energy to be a coherent sentence they quickly dissolve away into a small laugh instead. The mood in the room just as quickly reasserts itself back to one of pacified calm and in its wake even the burdensome sense of worry that had settled on Dan’s shoulders earlier is gone.

“So that’s it then. We’re getting a real Christmas tree,” Phil says.

“If you don’t decide to cancel the order, then yes. And you _can_ always cancel it, you know. It’s not like what I did is set in stone.”

Phil gives the laptop’s screen a considering look as if wondering if he should in fact cancel it after all, but before the idea can become more compelling he snaps the lid closed and sets the laptop down. “Really hope I don’t end up regretting this later.”

“Nah. It’ll be fine. Relax.” Dan waves the worry away like a noisome fly. Feeling cramped from maintaining his cross-legged posture, he once more stretches out across the couch, supine, like a large cat sunning itself and ignores the resulting protest of “hey!” when he uses Phil’s legs as a footrest.

“It’s just two lads having some top bants about trees and kilts,” Dan continues as he adjusts his position and crosses his ankles. “What could go wrong?”

Phil tries to look unamused by both Dan’s comment and the sock clad feet currently in his lap, but when Dan looks over at him with an expression bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Lenny face, he’s unable to keep pretending to be offended. A quick wiggle of eyebrows seals the deal and Phil once again gives in to a laugh. Dan offers his own brand of reassurance in not so many words and Phil accepts it, improper foot placement, dry wit and all, with the same quietly blissful delight he’d experienced on seeing the first wispy traces of snow falling from the sky. Some displays of love and support manifested themselves in the strangest ways, in little everyday details, and Phil thinks not all of them had to be overtly saccharine to be meaningful. Sometimes sharing space together on a couch while the minutes pootled along in the companionable hum of talking about everything and nothing at all was more than enough to illustrate the point.

 The rest of the evening passes in uneventful relaxation between bites of pad Thai and green curry. All ensuing small talk relegates itself to debating what programmes and movies to start watching on those days when their schedules weren’t blocked off with rehearsals for the tour or planning a queue of videos to film. No more mentions resurface about the impending Christmas tree delivery, though it remains a tiny tug of concern at the back of Phil’s mind. When it occurs to him later in hindsight, he thinks it might have helped if Dan hadn’t asked what could possibly go wrong as without fail, like the notorious Macbeth curse, the mere mention of the phrase was enough to invoke Murphy’s Law like a conjured poltergeist.

❧ ❧ ❧

 

The first inkling Dan has of things not going well is the sideways downpour of sleeting rain that greets him when he steps out the door on his way to deliver the speech he’s been working on for two weeks. He’s one of a handful of featured speakers invited to a private event hosted by YouTube, an opportunity meant for him to expand on his experiences centered on the positive benefits of creative expression with supporting statements emphasizing candid glimpses into his own struggles with depression he now felt more at ease to share with others on a public platform. But as he slogs through murky puddles of slush and mud he feels ready to call it quits and head back home to dive under his bed covers for the remainder of the day, inspirational speeches be damned.

 He tugs up the hood of his jacket and mutters under his breath about how lucky Phil was not have to go out on a day like this and instead be able to relax at home with a mug full to the brim with hot chocolate while waiting for the now infamous ‘kilt guy’ to arrive with their tree. The only thing Dan feels nominally good about is how Phil seemed more relaxed with the whole idea, no longer quite so worried about saying or doing the wrong thing. His change of mood could have had something to do with the collection of mince pies he and Dan had taken to buying from various stores in an effort to isolate those with the best flavor so they’d know exactly where to buy them next year. Phil had taken to the task with all the gravitas of a professional food critic though Dan had pointed out more nuanced differences Phil had overlooked between each one, but despite a few negligible disagreements over density and texture they’d ended up coinciding on one brand with a decent balance of ingredients close to perfection. After that, stuffed with spiced fruits and sugar filling, Phil’s mood had skyrocketed well past things like worrying over his encounter with the delivery driver. Now the only thing he talked about was what seasonal hot drinks to try from Starbucks and whether or not they might still have a white Christmas.

However, any lingering hopes they might have had for a festively snowy 25th has been shot down once again on seeing the weekly forecast devoid of any promising signs of snow for London, instead to be replaced by the miserable mixture currently assaulting the top of Dan’s head. He’d have brought an umbrella but had decided against it at the last minute. In his experience, public transportation and umbrellas didn’t mix well. In a crowded train car it would drip at his feet the entire ride to his stop, soaking the floor with a cosmic guarantee that somehow he would find a way to slip and fall head first into the crowd. Even walking past other people on the street usually ended in a tricky two step dance not to get his umbrella knocked aside by theirs like an impromptu jousting match neither party had signed up for. He shuffles along his trek towards the tube, content in the absence of an umbrella to keep his head bowed low through the rain like a bull set on charging headlong past a barricade of matadors, when an icy drop of water finds a way to insinuate itself past the layers of his scarf and jacket.

He’d outgrown many old habits over the years, but the visceral repulsion he had towards anything touching any part of his neck isn’t one of them. The shock of impact is immediate and electric. A violent shiver wracks his shoulders and he slaps at the offending droplet as it were a wasp caught under his clothes, but other than spreading the water into a cold wet patch on his skin the only thing he manages to do is attract the curious stares of pedestrians who give him a wide berth as they pass him on the pavement.  He hears a group of kids across the street snicker from their shelter underneath a storefront’s awning and one in the group points him out with a remark of, “what’s up with this geeza?” Someone else answers back too low for Dan to hear and then, as if it were the hot new dance move of the month, they all start slapping the back of their own necks and shrugging their shoulders with enthusiasm between high pitched hoots of laughter. Utterly perplexed and a bit red faced, Dan hurries past without looking their way lest he be accused of starting an international incident.

As soon as he reaches the underground, his idle wish to have been able to stay home becomes a strong imperative. Every train car that pulls up to the station opens its doors to reveal a capacity of standing room only and once he manages to ooze his way past the shoulder to shoulder traffic jam of people inside he ends up wedged between a smartly dressed woman on one side who stares at his feet with an imperious scowl as if daring him to take even one inch of a misstep with his muddy shoes anywhere near her heels and on the other side, a man wearing the distressed clothes of a construction worker whose upraised grip on the handrail overhead allows Dan an unobstructed whiff of his armpit. He holds out hope the man will soon leave, along with a good portion of the rest of the passengers in the car to allow him space to breathe, but both the crowd and the B.O lingers for stop after stop and it’s only when Dan’s own stop arrives that most of the passengers finally leave en masse, along with the construction worker who plods ahead trailing the smell of sweat and stress behind him in a pungent cloud Dan moves to the side to avoid.

An indignant “ _excuse me_ ” followed by a pointed shove in the middle of his back makes him stumble in the opposite direction like a careering pinball as the scowling woman from the train car shoves him out of her path and proceeds down the corridor with her heels clipping along with brutal force as if she meant to puncture the floor as well as anyone else who decided to get in her way. There’s something vaguely familiar about the long sweep of her dark hair and the deadly cultrate edge of her nails, enough to wind Dan momentarily with a surge of déjà vu. It’s like trying to recall a hazy moment from a long forgotten dream where the details hover just beyond his reach, but as the woman disappears into the crowd the feeling goes with her, drifting to the back of his mind where it fades once more into obscurity. Before anyone else can complain about him blocking their path, Dan quickly recovers himself and follows the tidal current of the crowd up the stairs to once again face the dreary weather waiting for him above.

As he resurfaces, a blast of wind sends a spray of chilled rain directly into his face, soaking the ends of his fringe peeking out from beneath his hood. It becomes immediately apparent that by the time he arrives at the venue all the effort he’d gone through this morning to carefully apply product in his hair to keep the natural spring of his curls neat and buoyant will have by now been completely undermined to make him look like a soaked mop. There were times when being a hot mess was an aspirational goal, most usually on days when he wasn’t due to appear on stage in front of an audience of peers, journalists and news outlets where the point was to reflect the positive impact of YouTube as a platform for individual expression, not highlight the walking disaster he now currently resembled with dark patches of slush flecked up to the knees of his trousers and water dribbling down his face and neck as if he’d waded through the Thames on his way over. Again, Dan mutters under his breath about Phil’s turn of good luck and follows up his grumbled complaints with a not quite serious wish for Phil’s hot chocolate to sour and for his socks to become drenched in a puddle the size of the ones spreading across the pavement ahead like small ponds. The ones accumulating in the street however are larger and as Dan pauses at the curb to wait his turn to cross, a cab turns the corner at breakneck speed and its tires part the water beneath its hell bent path in jetting waves to finish the job the rain had started in dousing him from head to toe.

Instantly, his hair along with his clothes devolves from a damp mop to the saturated consistency of overcooked pasta. Water doesn’t so much drip from the ends of his fringe now as it pours off. He stands frozen in shell-shocked silence, mouth agape as he watches the taxi speed off into a knot of traffic in the distance, oblivious to the trail of soggy destruction left behind it. A few people waiting beside him who had stepped back in time to avoid the sudden baptismal fount give him sympathetic glances as the light turns allowing them to cross. Dan remains in place like a living statue for a bare few seconds longer before he remembers himself and hurries after the crowd before another cab decides to speed by. The only thought on his mind now is of trying to reach his destination and hurrying inside to hopefully have time to dry off before he was scheduled to go on stage or before a roving subscriber recognized him and stopped him for a mid-downpour selfie. But when he’s half a block from the event instead of feeling relieved his vague sense of discomfort and unease grows more pronounced.

_That’s strange. I thought there’d be more people here. Maybe everyone arrived earlier than me?_

Huge placards with the names and faces of featured creators including his own are on display in a neat row like a wall along the length of the building to confirm he’s arrived at the right place, but the creators themselves as well as their invited managers, friends and acquaintances are nowhere to be seen. The pavement from one end of the block to the other is a deserted ghost town, save for the straggling lines of the usual blend of commuters and tourists passing the glossy YouTube advertisements with barely a glance up at any of them. There’s no security detail, no press reps, no event coordinators or their liaisons waiting with umbrellas and efficient alacrity to usher him inside with instructions for where to go and what to expect. There’s no busy commotion of cabs dropping off or picking up. There’s not even the customary bundle of curious subscribers excited to see their favourites in person if only for a blink and miss it glimpse. It’s unusually quiet for such a long discussed and much hyped event and as Dan quickly ascends the stairs to go inside the prickling feeling of unease overtakes every lingering insecurity about his appearance. The empty lobby he finds past the entrance doors doesn’t help. With every step forward the feeling becomes a physical ache like the ghost of a migraine or the invisible magnetic pushback he felt in his gut when a joke landed awry in a crowded room or when he’d unknowingly wandered somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be.

“…Hello?” He calls out to the room, but not even an echo of his voice answers back.

He ventures out further towards a dimly lit hallway and peers down towards the other end.  
Nothing. The hushed silence from the lobby extends past every closed door and deserted corridor. It’s eerie, like a selective apocalypse affecting only him or at least the one important place he needed to be. Lost for options he wanders back to the main desk and after turning in a slow awkward circle like a despondent fish as he gives one more look around the room to make sure he hasn’t missed an obvious sign, he promptly anchors himself in place, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he waits for someone, anyone, to round the corner and meet him.

He’s not aware of how focused he is on physically willing someone to appear, staring off into space with fixed determination in the hopes the gut feeling of ‘wrongness’ will disappear soon if he just meditates hard enough, until a hand suddenly drops onto his shoulder and his heart nearly hulk smashes its way through his chest in a burst of adrenaline.

“Jesus. More skittish than a horse and just about as tall as one too.”

A wry voice speaks up behind him and Dan turns quickly to face the amused, avid expression of a boy who appears to be only a few years younger than himself dressed in the very understated uniform of a rumpled blue hoodie and black jeans.

“You one of the engineers here about the ceiling then?” The boy sounds unconvinced as he says it, as if it were a personal joke between them considering the state of Dan’s clothes, completely unlike that of any civil engineer the boy had ever seen, London weather conditions notwithstanding.

“Er…no. I’m one of the attendees for the event today,” Dan says. “I’m due to be giving a talk soon.”

“No you’re not.”                                                                                                              

The answer, so flip and confident, catches Dan off guard.

“Sorry?”

“You’re not meant to be here.”

“But I am.”

“Nope.”

“If you could verify with someone-”

“No one here to verify with.” The boy twirls his hand to indicate the empty room, completely unperturbed by Dan’s strained efforts to make him understand, though Dan is beginning to suspect the boy is merely taking the piss.

“Look. Maybe we should start over. My name is-”

“Dan,” the boy finishes for him matter-of-factly. “Thought I recognized you from one of the posters outside but I couldn’t be sure considering that version of yourself didn’t look in the same state you do now. I like your videos by the way. Pretty decent.”

“Thanks,” Dan says dryly. “But if you recognize me, then you know I really am meant to be here.”

“I recognize loads of people in loads of places, doesn’t mean they’re all meant to be where they are.” The boy smirks, clearly enjoying their little back and forth and Dan feels his nerves cinch tighter with keyed up frustration.

“Look. If you could direct me to someone I could speak to-a supervisor, coordinator-whatever- I’ll just be off.”

“Can’t do that, mate.”

_Mate?_

“Why not?” The words nearly slip out of Dan’s mouth as a gritted plea for mercy from his current situation.

“Because you’re not a featured speaker today.” The boy continues before Dan has a chance to interrupt. “No one’s a featured speaker today. Not when the event’s canceled.”

“…You what.”

The boy nods. “They pulled the plug earlier this morning. Heard the higher up’s sent around a memo to let everyone know things had to be postponed until sometime next week or at least until the structural engineers had time to sort out the mess back there and check the integrity of the building. So much rain fell it about gutted a portion of the ceiling in the main hall. Water, water everywhere. You know the line.”

Dan has no idea how the conversation has progressed to quoting Coleridge, but he doesn’t have the energy to question it anymore. All his frustration has been displaced by the dismay of hearing he’d essentially fought through waterfalls of rain and braved the sardine can of public transportation that was the tube all to find out it was for nothing.

“But no one sent me a message about this,” he says in a drained afterthought to himself but the boy overhears.

“Checked your phone did you? Whole place this morning was nothing but frantic calls and people yelling about alerting this press outfit and that production company. From all the commotion you’d think it was the royal jubilee what got canceled. Hard to believe they managed to let someone as important as a featured speaker fall through the cracks.” There’s a teasing note to this comment that Dan ignores as he hurriedly fishes for his phone.

“Of course I checked….my…” he trails off and the furrowed knot between his eyebrows relaxes as he notices that he’s left all notifications on silent the entire time, then finds nothing else to say other than a small “fuck” when he next notices the five missed calls and three unread messages waiting for him.

“Sorry for giving you so much trouble before,” the boy says as Dan continues to stare in mollified silence at his phone’s screen. “But, to be fair, you looked like you needed someone to shake things up a bit.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m thoroughly shook.”

“Teague!” A voice calls out from beyond the lobby and they both look up towards the once empty hallway to see a much more formally dressed man in a suit and tie addressing the boy with a paned look of urgency on his face. “Sorry to interrupt, but they need you back in the meeting. Something about next week’s rescheduling allowing us to fine-tune the details for a better communication strategy.”

Teague rolls his eyes and aggravatedly passes a hand through his hair. “There’s nothing left to communicate. Everything’s in order, unless one of them starts arguing again. Swear it’s game of bloody thrones when they get going- just power plays and inner office politics to throw around their weight and prove a point that doesn’t matter.” Teague shakes his head and waves the man on with a message. “Tell them I’ll be over in a tick and try not to let them tear each other apart like a gladiatorial free for all until I get there.”

The man nods and sets off down the hall at a light jog towards the sounds of muffled voices Dan hadn’t heard before on first entering the building. He can’t make out what they’re saying but the upraised shouts and stressed syllables he _can_ hear carry the overall gist of a disagreement not quite evolved into the full blown row it’s heading towards.

“Event management and marketing team,” Teague offers by way of explanation as he turns back to Dan. “On a good day it’s bit like being an info broker. Everyone works together to get the low down on the social climate and target audience to plug in the details and make for a seamless performance without anything getting lost in translation. On a bad day, it’s the entire team fighting amongst each other for individual control over a project like a superiority contest. It’s mad. On those days it’s more like running a mafia.”

Dan stares at him, wondering exactly how old Teague was to be placed in charge of something as important as the venue’s go between for YouTube when it came to the logistics of event planning and production. Then he decides it probably wasn’t important. He and Phil had been 22 and 26 respectively when they’d started hosting Radio 1 without any experience in broadcasting between the two of them, surviving by virtue of their own effort and the patience of their mentors at the time, albeit while dealing with small technical snafus of falling equipment and anxiety over which button to press at what time. He’d learned then age and proficiency didn’t always go hand in hand or at least youth didn’t necessarily preclude having the other. He’d relearned that same lesson many times over throughout the years, culminating in the organization of one tour that would take him and Phil throughout the UK and further abroad across America. Now they were at the advent of a new tour that would span distances further than even that, across countries and towns they’d never visited before, featuring new segments, sets and styles they’d never tried before. Nothing could have prepared them for the grueling schedules and commitment involved, yet they’d managed it the same way they’d managed everything from the start: little by little, step by step, through trial and error, together. Age had never been a deterrent to accomplishing what they needed or wanted to do. Dan isn’t sure it ever would be unless they tried to do parkour in their seventies and even then the possibility, no matter how absurd, remained a viable one if Elon Musk progressed from developing flamethrowers and vehicular space stations to innovating biomechanical applications to prevent the physical effects of old age. In that same vein, however old Teague really was or wasn’t, he seems more than capable of handling his own.

“Then again,” Teague continues, “maybe our communication strategy really does need ‘fine-tuning’ if you weren’t notified early enough before coming here. Wish I could do something better than apologize to make up for it-” He pauses midsentence and on a sudden afterthought zips behind the front desk and opens a door leading to the back room just beyond it. Dan gets a silhouetted glimpse of many shelves and cabinets stacked along the walls, clearly meant for storage, and he hears the crinkling rustle of paper as Teague searches busily around them. In less than a minute he reappears with a small bag in one hand and this time hops over the desk rather than goes around it to give the small offering to Dan.

“It’s a gift bag meant for attendees and featured speakers,” he says. “Not exactly Oscar’s level, mind. Just a few vouchers and a sampling of products our team thought was thematically appropriate- you know, to encourage support for local businesses and independent ventures championing personal expression and community support. It might not be all to your taste, but maybe you’ll find something you’ll like. I know there’s a voucher in there for a swank café close by. Place has a red velvet hot chocolate that’s to die for. Remember I first tried it one Halloween when they marketed it as ‘blood chocolate’ and the demand was so good they kept it year round. Now it’s called ‘boisson noir’ like a play on ‘boudin noir?’” When Dan looks at him blankly Teague goes on. “Well, either way, I practically live off the stuff now.”

“Red velvet blood chocolate,” Dan says as he lifts up the bag with a weak smile, not quite having yet recovered from the revelation of his wasted trip or Teague’s sudden appearance to give a better answer. “Thanks, I think I’ll try it.”

“No worries. We’ll probably meet again next week if the engineers give us the go ahead. And also if that lot doesn’t tear each other limb from limb in the meantime.” Teague laughs and gestures with a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the raised voices steadily growing louder. “For now, go home, get some rest and enjoy the hot drink when you can.”

 “Right. Yeah. Will do.”

Teague waves goodbye as he heads off at a brisk trot towards the argument now in full sway with audible epithets breaking through the otherwise garbled jumble of shouts. He turns the corner down the hall and Dan is once more left to his own devices in the middle of the empty lobby, this time with the dubious addition of a gift bag and the knowledge he now had to take the same drenched, commuter packed route all the way back home.

 _No. You know what? I’m not going back straight away. I’m going to make the best of this situation._ He determinedly brushes away a wayward lock of hair from where it had fallen over his right eye and does his best to ignore it when it stubbornly bounces back now that the product once taming it had washed away in the rain. _Despite everything having gone wrong today, I’m going to leave here, go to that café, order the damn hot chocolate and I’m going to drink it by a window seat, watch the rain and enjoy this dreary excuse for a winter afternoon._

He tells Phil as much via text before he sets off on his journey, though he omits the details about his major oversight, deciding he’d rather deal with more detailed explanations later in person, preferably after he’d refueled on sugar and had time alone to recover. As Dan checks the bag for the voucher Teague had mentioned to verify the name and location of the café there’s no immediate reply to his message, but Dan isn’t expecting one. It wasn’t unusual for one or the both of them to be a bit lax in replying to texts immediately; especially not when they were busy as Phil presumably was with the delivery of their tree.

 _Probably getting an eyeful of kilts and pine branches right about now,_ Dan thinks. _Least there’s something else to look forward to when I get home- the story of kilt guy and how Phil didn’t sabotage the conversation or the entire Christmas season like he thought he would._

Emerging from the building’s comfortably heated interior back out into the artic mix of rain and wind is a disorienting slap to the face. The twisted wreckage of an inverted umbrella spins down the pavement like a strange tumbleweed, chased in turn by its owner who by their drenched raincoat and equally drenched hair no longer seems to need it. Blustery weather conditions is an understatement for the scene taking place in front of him, but Dan steels himself and hitches the hood of his jacket tighter around his head. He leans into the brunt of the wind gusts like a running back charging a goal line and trudges forward with single minded intent. The only other time he’d gone through half so much trouble to indulge himself was when he’d stubbornly hoarded the squashed remains of a pistachio muffin in his backpack for hours to enjoy as a pyrrhic victory later after having nearly blinded himself with deodorant spray in a rush to catch a cab to the airport. The needling stings of rain drops jabbing at his eyes threaten an instant replay of the first incident, but he squints past them and persists on. Enjoying a mug of hot chocolate, no matter how eccentrically named, has become less of a passing interest and more of a strong biological and spiritual need. Nothing else about the day had worked out but this would. He’d make sure it worked. Even if the next blast of wind knocked him over, even if he was in tears by the end of this walk. He’d sob into the foamed layer of whipped cream in his mug and enjoy every second of it.

The café appears ahead after three blocks like a speckled mirage through the rain. Dan nearly bowls over a person in front of him when he sees it. He sputters back a quick ‘sorry!’ to the grumbled noise of complaint that quickly fades out into the louder clatter of rain on store awnings as he races forward to the promised refuge of the warmer seating area he can see through the café’s whimsically styled iron and wood doors. As he enters, the soft puff of heat from the central vents overhead coats his face like the world’s best sheet mask and he instantly relaxes into the fragrant milieu comprised of brewed coffee, baked bread and iced pastries. A relaxed hum of voices rises over the shop’s selection of music playing from the speakers but Dan doesn’t stop to register the genre or the lyrics. He makes a beeline for the counter, blessedly free of a long queue save for three people, and waits his turn to order the infamous ‘boisson noir’ he can see advertised on the menu board. His entire day is about to be salvaged. He can feel it. He can smell it. His euphoria is so profound he considers the pros and cons of ordering what looks to be a small selection of freshly made chocolate teacakes behind the counter’s glass display case. They’re small enough and the chocolate layer over the marshmallow puff within seems thin enough that he thinks having one or two to pair off with his drink can’t be so bad. By the time his turn arrives he’s settled on buying four of them, two for himself and two for Phil. It’s not necessary, not when Phil usually indulged in enough marshmallows as a daily snack to render chocolate teacakes a moot point, but relief at the idea of finally being able to enjoy himself leaves Dan in a generous mood. He announces his order with a smile he hopes doesn’t look as off kilter as the rest of him, with water dripping off the ends of his sleeves and hair onto the floor by his feet. The cashier looks completely unfazed by him however, apparently used to serving London’s half drowned citizens when the weather brought them through the door with a drizzling fanfare of rain behind them.

Dan hands over the voucher and then fishes his wallet out of his pocket. Or he tries to.  
His fingers trace the companionable weight of his phone and the angled edges of his oyster card but nothing else. Under the cashier’s quizzical stare, he whacks the front of his jacket up and down with frantic slaps as if conducting a stop-and-frisk on himself. It’s then, after a rigorous pat down revealing balled up receipts and more pocket lint than he believes is strictly healthy, he makes a startling, soul crushing discovery.

The café doors open again and a cold swirl of wind travels down the aisles to creep along the back of Dan’s neck like the physical embodiment of the universe’s amusement as he slowly looks back up at the cashier, lightheaded with the onset of what feels like delirium and hysterical laughter as he says in a small voice, “I…I left my wallet at home.”

 

❧ ❧ ❧

 

The entire train ride back home occurs in an uneventful blur of sound and motion Dan barely pays any attention to save for the notable ping of a text alert announcing a reply from Phil one hour later which simply reads:

Dan doesn’t bother trying to decode this apparent cipher in disguise and decides to wait until he arrives home to unravel the mysteries behind ladybirds and bathtubs. He doesn’t have to wait long. After enduring a repeat of his first trip over in a packed train car with the same volume of people all with the same varying degrees of facial expressions spanning anger, resignation and what he assumes must be a pinched look of constipation on one particularly distressed looking passenger, he exits back out onto the familiar network of streets leading home. He soon arrives at the front door of their building with a silent wry note of thanks that he hadn’t been hit by a stray meteor or jumped by a pack of wild foxes to round out the events of his day. Phil however seems to have had his own experiences in being jumped by random wildlife, an adventure he loudly announces to every tenant within earshot as Dan unlocks the door to go inside only to freeze where he stands when every 6’ 2” of Phil rushes him immediately with a loud, grit toothed greeting of “BEETLES! THERE’S BEETLES, DAN! BEETLES!”

With that, Dan barely has time to shut the door behind him before he finds himself hauled into the room by Phil’s hands on his shoulders, his ears ringing with the echoing shout of “BEETLES!” spoken at such a volume and repeated in such a frenzy he’s sure the phrase will continue to rattle about his head well after turning in for the night. Where and how and when remain elusive details about this apparent invasion of beetles Phil seems determined to alert the entirety of London about. It’s only after Dan yells back an appeal for calm and grips Phil by his own shoulders as if they were about to attempt a radical new ballroom dance move that Phil’s wild eyed energy subdues itself towards something approaching true composure.

“Right. Breathe. Breathe,” Dan says cautiously, unsure of whether he should release Phil’s shoulders in case any leftover bursts of pent up energy might cause him to careen off into a wall. “Now what’s going on about beetles?”

The word excites an instinctive twitch of revulsion and Phil flinches backwards with a full body shudder. “God, it’s horrible! Beetles everywhere!”

“Beetles everywhere….where?” Dan quickly prompts him again before they’re lead right back to where they’d started.

“In the bath! Crawling on the floor, the tub-everywhere!” Phil gestures vaguely down the hall and turns his face away as if he can’t even stomach the idea of looking in the direction of a bathroom he now clearly considers on par with a nuclear accident. It’s not much of an explanation yet, but at least Dan now understands the meaning behind the cryptic message on his phone. Phil shakes his head with another shiver of disgust. “You have no idea what I’ve been through today.”

“That’s my line,” Dan mutters. He heads for the lounge, wrestling his jacket off the entire way and placing the questionable souvenir of his gift bag onto the edge of a planter belonging to a monstrous houseplant Phil had ordered months ago without realizing it would be the size of a small tree when it arrived. He doesn’t stop to glance at either the plant or the gift bag as it overbalances and falls squarely into the dirt. Phil also doesn’t stop to comment and instead unquestioningly follows after him in unspoken agreement to continue the conversation about their personal mishaps in a setting unaffected by either frigid downpours or bug infestations.

Dan toes off his shoes before entering the lounge and leaves both them and the jacket to dry in the hall before he accidentally left a trail of water through the house like Samara emerging from her well, though he’s sure he already resembles her with his wet hair currently pressed flat to his head as if it had been flat ironed and sealed into place with copious amounts of hair gel. In less than an hour however, he knows it’ll dry into an unkempt snarl of curls far from anything attractive no matter what Phil said when they were alone. Dan meanders towards the couch, determined to sink into the cushions and to not think any more about his hair or the uncomfortably damp state of his socks, and the first thing he notices, apart from his wallet lying between a succulent and a scented candle on the table, is the one important thing missing from the room, the one thing whose presence he’d been partly relying on to make up for the write-off that has been his day- namely, their Christmas tree.

“Oh, yeah. That’s the other thing… It never arrived,” Phil says as he stops and stares with Dan at the empty spot by the television where a tree should be. “I waited the entire afternoon only for ‘kilt guy’ or I guess another employee to send a message saying there’d been an overbooking of deliveries for today and mine was one of the ones what needed to be rescheduled, but they’re not even sure it can arrive in time before Christmas now.”

“Wow, guess we both drew the short straw this time, didn’t we?” Dan flops gracelessly onto the couch and throws one arm over his face. “Kilt guy doesn’t show, I show up to give a talk at an event that isn’t happening and now we have bugs in the bath.”

“And also the washing machine broke with no idea when the landlord will either repair or replace it,” Phil says. “I spilled boiling hot coffee in the kitchen, answered important emails about venues booked for the tour and found out quite a handful still need to be confirmed and others still haven’t answered back about ticket sales times, so also no idea if they’ll comply with having sales begin at the same time on the same day.” He mirrors Dan and flops down onto the couch beside him. “It’s just been…a day. I tried to forget about the stress by running a hot bath with lit candles, some ambient music and a bath bomb I’d been saving up from Halloween only to find myself accompanied by about a hundred beetles scuttling out of the wood.”

“Don’t say scuttling,” Dan groans as he lets his arm drop away from his eyes with a dramatic thud onto his lap. “It’s too descriptive and I definitely do not want to see beetles ‘scuttling,’ either in our bath or in my imagination.”

“Well, how do you think I felt? I can never take a bath again.”

“Never again? Bit dramatic. And potentially smelly.”

“Obviously not ‘never again.’” Phil laughs, “I’ll still take showers as I’ve never seen them before when I did, only now when I had a bath, which makes me think it’s something to do with the amount of water in the tub flooding them out, but I’ve been looking into bug sprays and hopefully it’ll work so I can possibly enjoy more bath bombs in future without worrying about tiny beetle voyeurs.”

“Don’t kinkshame them, Phil.”

“I will when they’re in my house.”

“I’ll remember that next time you go on about IHOP pancakes.”

Dan ducks away from the throw pillow playfully chucked at his head and when the moment passes they say and do nothing else for a time except sit in a brief pause of silence, listening to the rain tap against the windows and the distant hiss of cars passing through the slicked over streets. There’s nothing philosophical or groundbreaking about it. Dan doesn’t feel as if he’s reached a poetic conclusion about his experiences today and Phil doesn’t offer any platitudes of positivity to put a better spin on his own trials and frustrations. As Phil had said, they’ve simply both just had ‘a day,’ one in a procession of many where the outcome wouldn’t always be favorable.

 _Like with most things_ , Dan thinks. _Emotions, expectations, people- it’s all relative. And today, relatively speaking, it all sucked._

Phil turns to him after another a minute and breaks the silence first. “You mentioned your day wasn’t so great either. Something about the event not going ahead like you thought?”

“It didn’t go ahead at all. There was no event. Turns out it was canceled early this morning and I never checked my phone so I never saw the messages telling me about it. Then the head of the event management team- nice guy by the way. Bit strange, but nice- gave me a consolation prize of a gift bag with a discount voucher for a hot chocolate. Red velvet flavored apparently- ”

“Oooh!” Phil interjects with wide eyed interest and Dan nods.

“My thoughts exactly, but after I fought my way over to the café I found out I’d left my wallet home.”

“Oh…They couldn’t even give you a pity glass of hot chocolate?”

 “A pity glass of hot chocolate somehow sounds worse than no hot chocolate at all.”

They fall silent again and Phil looks up at the ceiling as if distracted by an internal monologue debating whether or not it really was worse to have a conciliatory hot chocolate given in charity over being able to just buy one instead. They remain in this bubble of a pause for another few minutes, each of them lost to his own thoughts, caught up in a knotted tangle of emotions more troubled and complex than they care to name or understand enough in the moment to identify. Phil registers it distantly like a troublesome twinge in the throat preceding a cold. Dan feels it like a weight in the middle of his head, gradually bearing down stronger and stronger. If they hadn’t both been so tired from their ordeals they might have been able to pin down the source of their troubles; to categorize it into something more definite they could address and resolve, but time and promised commitments leaps ahead of them, pulling them along its path with harried urgency, leaving no time for forethought or meditation. When they snap out of their respective musings and later decide to order takeaway (pizza this time to balance out the Thai they’d ordered last week) Dan isn’t surprised when it arrives later than expected. They’re also not surprised when Phil opens the boxes to reveal they’d been handed another customer’s order altogether. By the time their promised replacements arrive even later than the first they’re well past the point of caring overly much about it. It's a pattern Dan recognizes having begun well before today’s culmination of unfortunate events in a steady buildup of small scale disappointments, bad timing and a sense of tired resignation to the tedious flow of each passing day. He’d sensed it even on the day Phil had returned home to eagerly announce his plans to get a real Christmas tree with an excitement that had been back dropped by lingering unspoken worries over the logistics of tour planning and video filming. Nothing is quite falling together, nothing is quite going to plan, everything feels at odds with their best wishes to cope and though Dan would sit back and reason to himself once more that this too was relative, that not everything was promised to go according to plan no matter how well one prepared for every random eventuality, it feels disingenuous and irrelevant. He already knows this story by heart. He already understands the dualistic theories behind actuality and potentiality. The universe provided him with daily examples of lessons about all the things he can’t control or plan for, but there’s a vital piece of information missing all the same, something more than worldly aphorisms and philosophical quandaries can explain; something they’re both overlooking every time they adhered to a schedule which left them both vaguely disconnected from the moment and each other. Dan feels its absence in the empty space by the television and in the roiling froth of clouds in the snowless sky. It’s more important than either Christmas trees or snow days, but figuring out exactly what it might be doesn’t hit him until a week later when they’re in the middle of setting up equipment for another gaming livestream in two hours with the hope that perhaps today the lag won’t be so horrendous.

“The lag is going to be horrendous,” Dan says. They haven’t done a test run yet but Dan knows with the unerring certainty of a veteran of technical snafus and plodding broadband speeds that their connection isn’t likely to cooperate.

“Maybe. But we have to try.” Phil doesn’t look up as he continues to busy about the desk, meticulously arranging and then rearranging the lighting by the computer. There’s a mechanical quality to his answer, as if he’s not convinced they have to try at all, as if he’s not sure he wants to be wrestling with the lighting rig or a live stream right now, a sentiment Dan currently empathizes with, but Phil goes on fiddling with the camera and the light stand without argument. The television has been purposefully left on downstairs in the lounge for background noise and the sound of another commercial break floats up the stairs to fill the small room. Once again Dan hears the slogan for “DRIVE SMUG” followed by a litany of similar repetitive ads hawking a particular sweet or a shop or a lawyer, all of them by now so familiar he could mouth along to them as if he’d rehearsed the lines for months beforehand. It’s the perfect soundtrack for another grey London winter afternoon, the same as the all rest before it. Predictable. Monotonous. Business as usual. And not at all according to plan.

‘The plan’ at its most basic core had always been about dedicating themselves to vital priorities, to establishing those priorities with healthy boundaries in mind, to setting the kinds of goals favorable to their intentions and wellbeing; to offset the counterproductive suggestions of futilistic self-doubt and dissatisfaction when they sprung up in their most insistent and vicious forms. It had been about supporting each other’s goals and meeting them together. It had been about making work more than the expected definition of 9-5 drudgery at the expense of their true ambitions, personalities and happiness. ‘The plan,’ no matter how loosely defined, had always been about the two of them, but the droning chorus of marketing jingles and the repetitive taps on the desk from Phil fidgeting with a mess of snarled wires gives Dan a strange disorienting sensation, leaving him utterly disengaged from both the gaming room and Phil. It’s greater than any sense of exasperation over trying to meet their commitment of filming a gaming video every day leading up to Christmas. That task at least was something he wanted to do; to gain a cathartic satisfaction in having attempted and completed it. The grumbling note of soured frustration building in his head goes far beyond the four walls around him, yet, at the same time, they sum up his dilemma perfectly.

  _I don’t want to be here right now_ , he thinks. It occurs to him with the force of a revelation. _We shouldn’t be here right now._

The light stand tilts sharply and the bulb flashes a hot white glare in Dan’s eyes before Phil quickly readjusts it back in place. In that brief luminous instant, as Dan scrunches up his face and pushes backwards from the desk, rubbing away the yellow green blotches superimposed over his vision as if he’d glanced directly at a solar eclipse, he realizes exactly what’s wrong; exactly what’s been missing all this time. He can’t believe he hadn’t realized before. The signs had all been there but he’d missed each one. He should have seen it the day things had gone spectacularly wrong for both of them, but their obligations had been too crucial and omnipresent to think of anything else at the time. Now, with his endurance having reached the breaking point, Dan stands up from his chair, crosses the room to shut the door against the blare of the television downstairs and turns to Phil with a quiet declaration.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“What?” Phil pauses in the middle of checking settings on the camera and stares at him.

“I’m tired, I’m irritated and I’m not up to sticking my face in a lens to convey an emotion I don’t currently feel.”

“We don’t have to do it today then,” Phil says and promptly snaps off the studio light. “We could switch out for one of the pre-edited videos and stream tomorrow-”

“No. I’d rather revisit this when it feels right and it doesn’t currently feel right. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not at all.”

“It’s on the schedule though. We haven’t done a stream in-”

“So?” Dan frowns. “So bloody fucking what? So what if we haven’t done one in three years? We make the rules. We’ve the ones making our schedules and we’re the ones who rearrange them as we see fit according to circumstance. We don’t _have_ to do this. We don’t have to sit here thumbing through wires, wrestling with equipment; fielding phone calls and emails and juggling the complexities involved with maintaining a social presence every single day when we’re not on or not up to being clever or funny or engaging-”

“Dan…” Phil begins hesitantly as he straightens up from the desk, faintly alarmed, but Dan’s passionate salvo of a mission statement gathers steam and keeps going strong.

“-especially if we need a day off and we need a day off so we’re taking a day off to indulge ourselves however fucking way we want without punishing ourselves for it or feeling guilty about delaying certain responsibilities when we also have a responsibility to ourselves. We’ve been so busy organizing the details about sets and funding and venues and worrying about demands for presence and final decisions that we forgot ourselves; as the main act if we don’t invest in our own wellbeing having the rest of the details squared away won’t matter if we’re too keyed up and bogged down with stress to function. We’re not a sweatshop. This is our lives and we always deserve to put our needs first when things are feeling particularly shit like it does for me at the moment. It’s like I’m divided up into distinct fragments of self and each one is at odds with the other, dealing with a- a- maelstrom of- of- not exactly maelstrom-”

Dan furiously searches for the word he’s looking for. “Malaise? Is that it? I don’t know. Some general unrest where it feels like I’m constantly changing my mind and every time I want to make a decision the rest of my thoughts leap ahead of themselves and suddenly I wonder if I’m doing the right thing, if this is exactly what I want or need as a person or if I’ll end up realizing I could have made a better decision well after it’s too late to change anything. I want things to work. I want the way I envision the ideal path of my life to work, where we’re making strides in everything we want to create and expressing ourselves as the people we are or want to be as opposed to keeping to the routine of a script I don’t agree with and isn’t comfortable anymore. I want to be selfish and think only about ourselves for a change, without worrying about delivery people who never show up or scheduled livestreams and liveshows I don’t want to be live for and public events that don’t go the way I expected them to. So we’re going to take some time off starting right here and now and we’re going to use that free time to indulge ourselves; stop overthinking what we don’t want and focus on what we do want and so we’re going to go and get a real damn Christmas tree.”

Dan’s chest heaves as he finally stops to pull in what feels like the first breath he’s taken since he started talking. On the way to his lungs it catches in his larynx, snagged briefly on the nettled sting currently jabbing the back of his throat in protest to his sudden filibuster. It’s the same stinging pain he’s felt on and off since his drenched sojourn through London. Phil had suggested it could be the early symptoms of a cold, but Dan had merely passed it off as his body frantically trying to readjust to the extreme polarity of conditions he’d subjected it to in going from isolated hermit on his couch to wading through the bacterial biome of public transport while braving the cold and wet London streets. Now, every time he spoke past two sentences it felt as if he’d swallowed a puffer fish that had lodged itself firmly in the lining of his throat. He winces past it however, subconsciously following Phil’s personal homeopathic approach of mentally willing the discomfort to go away as he takes a moment to catch his breath in the interval of surprised silence enveloping the room. Phil makes an effort to speak, but at first his mouth can only form the shapes of words that never quite reach lift-off from his vocal chords. When he manages to recover enough to reply it’s with a faint tone of wondering disbelief.

“I- you- what?”

“You heard me. We’re going to get the damn tree.” The puffer fish in Dan’s throat briefly expands and he stifles it behind a cough.

“But- we don’t have a car.”

“We’ll _rent_ a car. I’ve been hearing Sixt’s ridiculous ‘drive smug’ catch phrase for so long I think it’s hypnotized me at this point. Might as well use subliminal coercion to our advantage. Afterwards, I’ll drive us to wherever the nearest tree farm is. If you…if you want to.”

Dan pauses, mindful to choose his next words with care now the frenzied energy behind his bottled up need to speak his mind has been spent. He realizes then he’s been stood in the middle of the room like an orator with a vendetta and awkwardly shuffles sideways to take a seat. As the rolling wheels of his chair slowly trundle backwards to bump up against the sofa behind him, Phil automatically moves to sit down in the other chair and rolls his way over so as to be opposite each other.

“If you want to do this then we will.” Dan continues in a more measured tone, half out of the need to subdue the pain in his throat and half to keep his idle idea from sounding like a caustic demand in case Phil wasn’t as keen about it. “It’s a ‘we’ thing only if you want it to be. It’s fine if you don’t want to. I’ll pop over to any store and pick out another artificial one like the last-”

“No. We’ll do the road trip.” Phil doesn’t think about the answer and the quick reply coupled with the earnest sincerity behind it is enough to briefly alleviate the pike that’s been drilling through Dan’s skull for the past few days.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Of course. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a tree farm. I don’t even know if I have.”

“You can’t remember if you’ve ever visited a tree farm? Sounds like the sort of a thing not easy to forget. Not because trees are exactly an otherworldly phenomenon,” Dan amends on quick reflection. “But from what I gather picking out one to cut down and bring home to set up is this whole experience.”

“True. But I still can’t remember if I’ve ever gone. For example, I always thought I’d never seen a hedgehog in person. Right in front of me, I mean. Not like in a picture. But my mum reminded me the other day my grandparents had a family of hedgehogs living in their garage and my grandad made a little house for them to hibernate in for the winter.”

“How do you forget something like that? That’s incredible. Your grandad basically built them a chalet.”

Phil laughs. “Memories are so weird sometimes. I guess it slipped my mind, especially as I was always off on my own adventures when I was a kid and my imagination back then was a bit…”

“Was a bit exactly as it is now? Typically Phil Lester?” Dan finishes the sentence when Phil can’t think of the right word. “Always off in your own vivid world, stranger and better than the one around you?”

“Something like that. I guess when it came to the hedgehogs I didn’t know if I actually did see them or just imagined I did. It’s like when I used to think seahorses weren’t real.”

“No one could blame you honestly. Some animals are like a collective hallucination and seahorses are first on the list. Giraffes are second.”

“And you’re third?” Phil smirks.

“Meaning I’m too strange to be real or that I’m your personal hallucination?”

“Bit of both.”

“Well, when you wake up from your intricate fever dream try to remember me alright?”

“You’d be incredibly difficult to forget even if I tried.”

Something about the choice of his words and the resonance behind them, tinged with inflections of quiet admiration different from the playful back and forth they’d engaged in just a few seconds before, brings a warm rush of heat to Dan’s face. He doesn’t spend too long basking in it at the expense of his head exploding, filled to the brim as it is now with tingling arcs of affection much better by far than the bulk of unaddressed frustrations previously fogging his brain. He knows it’s all a muddle of physiological responses and biological chemistry colluding with his consciousness to create the aura of ease currently enveloping him like an ephemeral shield which won’t keep the inevitable weight of the world and his own persistent thoughts at bay for long. But the more poetic side of him, the part too indelibly romantic and idealistic to be truly stamped out by the greater cynical part of his nature, rounds out every scientific and philosophical explanation to the simpler common denominator of love and he decides, with little deliberation, however fleeting or trite it might sound, the history of trust between them is more than enough to suffice as encouragement right now; strong enough and compelling enough to carry him from this moment to whichever might follow. If Phil might find it hard to forget him, then Dan thinks the feeling is mutual. When it came to rare phenomena too incredible to be real, Phil took center stage above seahorses and giraffes. Dan supposes perhaps it was just the way love in all its physiological and metaphysical forms had a way of transcending the ordinary, elevating it to something better. Or perhaps it was just that Phil, regardless of favor or affection, was a memorable whirlwind of an experience unto himself, too singular a person to easily forget, though Dan muses that too could all just be relative.

“What are you thinking about? You look so intense.”

Phil’s voice breaks through the cloud of his internal one sided conversation and Dan startles backwards from the middle distance he’d been fixedly staring into without realizing.

“Sorry. Having a bit of an introspective moment.”

“Introspective introvert,” Phil immediately says with a grin.

“Yes. That’s exactly how we’re rebranding the tour. The two of us on stage having deep philosophical debates about the universe and existential paradigms.”

“Like a slightly less motivational TED Talk,” Phil agrees. “With you breaking out quotes from Aristotle and Sartre, balanced by a self-deprecating observation for comedic effect just in case you come off as too pretentious.”

“Wow, I didn’t realize this was going to turn into a personal attack.” Dan gives the armrest of Phil’s chair a slight shove to send both it and Phil rolling backwards against the wall. Phil instinctively braces himself though the impact is soft and feigns a pained “ow!” as he laughs.

“I wasn’t attacking you,” he says. “Just saying the truth.”

“Yeah, well, save ‘the truth’ for our game then. It’s more rewarding when my snappy comebacks earn enough points to destroy you.”

“Actually, the last time we played with Tom and Hazel, I won against all of you.”

“Through a tie breaker answer that turned out darker than any of us expected. I think we were all just stunned into giving you that point really.”

“Yeah, er, let’s just forget about that.” Phil becomes intensely concentrated on the task of scooting his chair back into place as he changes the subject through much over exaggerated coughing and clearing of his throat. “Getting back to introspective speeches, I’m sorry your talk at the event was canceled. I know you worked hard on that.”

“It’s fine,” Dan says with a noncommittal shrug. “It’s only been postponed and anyway it gives me time to review a few key points to perfect the delivery.”

“It already sounded perfect the last time you went over it with me. You’ve always been good at conveying your thoughts eloquently. I was…very moved if I’m honest. I think everyone else who hears it will be too.”

An unfurling bloom of warmth immediately settles in the center of Dan’s chest. It’s the equivalent of taking a long indulgent drink of hot tea, strangely panacean and satisfying. He had always derived an ineffable kind of satisfaction from honest praise, but it felt more profound when offered from close friends who sincerely appreciated his efforts without him having to worry if they were covert sycophants harboring ulterior motives behind their expressions of support. However, it felt more so meaningful coming from Phil who had always offered nothing but compliments from the start, back in a time when Dan’s username was an oddity unassociated with any YouTube channel Phil had ever heard of before, thereby making the constant DMs and comments Dan sent him easier to ignore than sending a reply back at the risk of not knowing whether this boy from Reading who clearly had designs on creating videos as well, with less than a tenth of Phil’s following at the time, harbored secret ulterior motives of his own . But against all odds, Phil _had_ replied back, with genuine fervor and interest and a subtler undercurrent of what Dan thought had sounded a bit like relief to finally have found someone so in tune with his personal interests and flair for the unusual. Phil, whose daily life was often happily occupied by filming the more interesting meanderings and ideas of his own private world, had stumbled on someone who seemed comfortable and willing to live in that world with him, allowing him in turn to thrive on the solidarity which naturally existed between all kindred spirits. Even after he’d viewed Dan’s inaugural video on YouTube containing what Dan continued to think was a memorialized testament to disaster with excruciating pauses between jump cuts and a not so eloquent personal introduction which induced quivering shudders of regret each time he heard it; all captured by the awkward film angle of a laptop camera balanced precariously on an unconventional tripod of DVDs and textbooks, Phil had expressed nothing but enthusiasm. In the face of Dan’s lingering doubt over the finished product he’d insisted the effort alone was what mattered, a personal maxim Phil continued to uphold to this day. He’d gone on to imply that improvement was inevitable if Dan only applied forward momentum to his interests by investing energy in bringing them from idle thought to reality - never mind how awkward or uncertain his first efforts might be. Now, years later, with millions of subscribers between them, better filming equipment, better camera presence and a place to call their own leagues apart from the compact brown and beige walls of his old bedroom; working together towards mutual goals of comfort and contentment in their careers and with themselves, Dan realizes the small but substantial difference in all his efforts, apart from his own desire to see them through, had always been Phil. In a long line of acquaintances who hadn’t understood or didn’t care; with teachers who professed skepticism over his talents and one music teacher in particular who had traumatized him enough years ago to make the idea of ever taking piano lessons again questionable at best, Phil remained a constant source of encouragement.

 _Effort is only half as good as the belief those efforts matter to begin with_ , Dan thinks. _And sometimes having just one person - someone who matters most, someone who genuinely cares- believe in you when finding the ability to believe in yourself is harder than it should be, makes a world of difference in trying to accomplish anything. I probably could have gone it alone if I had to. I might’ve found other people to encourage or mentor me along the way, but I found Phil and, to quote Frost instead of Aristotle this time, that’s made all the difference. I don’t think that part’s relative. In any context, he’s the one variable that’s always mattered. He still does. He always will, even during those times we drive each other a bit mad. In a list of things that haven’t exactly gone to plan or failed completely, us doing this- whatever ‘this’ is at the end of the day- just trying and coping together, being best friends, colleagues and whatever other technicalities of affection we decide to define ourselves by or not in the future, the loose plan involving living our lives side by side has always been the one thing to stay on track._

Lost once again to another impromptu reverie, Dan isn’t aware of Phil incrementally leaning forward the entire time, silently rolling his chair across the floor to close the distance between them, until he blinks and refocuses to see Phil’s wide eyed, sea glass tinted stare a foot from his face.

“Helloooooooo?” Phil’s voice undulates in a controlled echo, as if he were calling out to Dan from the other side of a long tunnel. “Are you going to come back up for air any time soon?”

Without replying, Dan returns the stare with a deadpan look in a minute long standoff that might have gone on for longer if they both hadn’t conceded seconds later in a fit of snorting laughter. Dan rolls his eyes and lightly pushes Phil away, then cracks up harder when the momentum unexpectedly twirls Phil’s chair around in a graceful pirouette that despite its gentle arc makes him grab the armrests of the chair to keep from falling off. By a close margin Phil manages to keep from reenacting Dan’s own failed track record with gravity in relation to chairs and, after regaining his balance, swivels back around with a smirk of a smile Dan has come to recognize as a familiar expression of roguish glee.

“If I’d known you’d react this way after getting a compliment I’d do _that_ instead of playing ‘hello internet’ every time we have an epic argument,” Phil says.

Dan’s mouth settles in a sulky moue, but he silently agrees. Anything would be better than being followed throughout the house with a laptop open to his younger self slowly easing into frame with a stilted delivery of a salute that could only be rivaled by a Tommy Wiseau performance, barring that Wiseau’s film had become a cult favorite and ‘Hello Internet’ remained, in his mind, despite the millions of viewers who were able to quote it with the same enthusiasm as they did ‘The Room,’ a spectacular flop.  He doesn’t admit as much to Phil however and simply replies, “You could do that if you wanted, except we don’t really have ‘epic arguments.’ ”

“Strenuous disagreements then. Though...I guess it’d be more like pandering instead of being honest.” Phil’s expression blends into one a bit less roguish. “I do mean it, you know. About the way you express yourself.”

The bloom of warmth in Dan’s chest unfurls itself further, but unlike before, he tries not to get lost in the renewed tide of satisfaction it brings in its wake. Instead, he sighs with a feigned air of indifference.

“Yes, I know. I’m a waffling mess and you’re an uncoordinated disaster with a nice personality.”

“Oh thanks. Nice to know I at least have a nice personality.”

“There’s plenty other things nice about you, but I usually tell you about it in ways that don’t require words at all.”

Dan speaks with the same detached nonchalance, but nearly breaks character as he watches every racing thought in Phil’s head hit the Bremermann’s Limit in an attempt to process the many nuances of the suggestive reply. When all possible solutions lead back to an even more suggestive explanation, it’s Phil’s turn to be caught up in a complex tide of emotions bordering on faint embarrassment and stronger affection.

“But really I’m just pandering to your sense of flattery to make you agree to wash the dishes tonight,” Dan says with apt timing to break the tension. “Did it work?”

Though his cheeks have turned a muddled fuchsia, as if he had a small lightbulb shining under his skin, Phil doesn’t miss a beat when he replies, “Depends on how eloquently you express yourself later tonight, the way you put it, without words.”

“Is that your way of asking me to ‘show you what that mouth do?’ ”

“Wh- Dan!” The pink tinge on Phil’s face blends into a more pronounced gradient of red like a fever. Then, thinking about it, he follows up his not quite affronted outburst with a quieter, “…maybe?”

They exchange a look, itself rife with more nuanced expressions and signals despite their mirrored flushed complexions, every unspoken thought coinciding on promises they both intended to keep later when the inviting cave of bedsheets and duvet covers in one of their bedrooms proved more interesting an environment to explore together than the varied corners of the internet displayed across the tabs in their browsers. But as they self-consciously recap the last part of the conversation in their heads, the absurdity of it all, combined with the growing need to say something to displace the tight fluttery pocket of air trapped in their chests, makes them look away from each other in another small fit of laughter.

“Right. This conversation is ridiculous. We’re clearly a terrible influence on each other.” Dan stands up from his chair, still laughing. “So, are we decided?”

“About what? You and your mouth-”

“No!” Dan grimaces. “God, I’ve created a monster. I meant about getting the tree.”

“Oh, right!” Phil’s back to looking impish, leaving Dan with the distinct impression that the misunderstanding might have been more by design just to see his reaction. “It’s a yes to the tree. And yes to you making dinner later if I’m the one meant to be clearing up after?”

“Sounds fair enough. Any ideas? And I mean for dinner you rat, not an innuendo for something else.”

“Hey, you started us down this dark path to begin with. Don’t blame me for following along. And since we’ve already had Thai and Italian, then I think we should further diversify and go with Mexican fajitas tonight.”

“Ooh, going with a theme. I like it.”

“Figured we should ‘spice’ things up a bit.” Phil grins appreciatively at his own pun but Dan ruins his moment when he answers back, “but I thought spicing things up was the plan for later tonight?”

The weighted silence which follows, along with an infallible instinct borne of experience, tells them both they’ve exhausted the limit of clever entendres and humorous puns at the risk of crossing the line of no return into the realm of the truly cheesy.

Phil sighs and shakes his head. “We should probably stop.”

“…Ok.” Dan agrees without further comment and they both move in unspoken accordance towards the door to head downstairs to the kitchen, eager to begin their Mexican feast quest without more conversations littered with suggestive one-liners they might end up regretting a minute later after speaking.

Inevitably however, as per their habit of turning the most menial tasks like chopping peppers and peeling onions into a more amusing experience of lighthearted rejoinders as they wait for the food to cook, the same puns and innuendos creep back with a vengeance neither feels particularly fussed to address with a serious complaint. The mundane racket of water running in the sink and the percussive chime of a metal lid scraping the rim of its pan assume a more melodic quality. They’re old hands at this by now, falling by unconscious habit into the more pleasurable flow of each other’s company to make the day to day routines of their lives a transformative act defined by the small eccentricities of their personalities. Finding equipoise no longer seems like a grit toothed act of force to attain, at least not in the same way the way it did years ago when inexperience, misunderstandings, scrutiny and self-conscious fears seemed to be the greatest obstacles towards achieving what they most wanted out of their lives. And though there are days when some greater detail slips through the cracks of their best intentions and the weight of their minds or professional commitments demand more than either can handle alone or together, these moments too become filtered through their need to move past the disquiet into something more amenable and entertaining. It’s not perfect, but Dan thinks nothing ever is and it’s small moments like these as they sit contentedly enjoying a meal they’ve made at home while watching Altered Carbon on TV, detached from the more pressing worries of obligations which had previously crowded around him in the game room to the point of suffocation, that make the contained universe of a refuge they’ve managed to create together just as good as perfect to suffice. As he watches Phil out of the corner of his eye, chewing away with an express look of satisfaction on his face, it’s clear Phil is of the same mind.

It might have been the fragrant kick of Cajun spices wafting through the air or the flare of heat simmering above the pan enough  to frost the kitchen windows with a mist of condensation distorting the city lights outside into a starry glow or it might have been the piquant aftertaste of their finished meal lingering with pleasant warmth in their bellies, but soon a self-indulgent mood falls over them both and the rest of the evening passes in blurs of unimportant dialogue neither can truly recall over the quieter, more physical dialogue they establish later, ankles twined in a soft nest of bedsheets; heartbeats thrumming chest to chest, exchanging private missives in the press of their fingertips and the brushing glide of a kiss under the reflective sheen of the moon mirror over Dan’s bed.

 

Two days later, the siege of bathtub beetles return in embattled but substantial numbers and the puffer fish in Dan’s throat implodes into a pronounced case of bronchitis. Through a newly invented language of pained squeaks and guttural tones imitating the vocal register between a groan and a growl, Dan conveys his unwavering commitment to the plan of getting a tree before Murphy’s Law could reassert itself once more with worse obstacles than voice loss or insects colonizing their plumbing. Phil remains skeptical about the wisdom behind what now seems more like impulsive defiance as Dan zips up his jacket and swipes up his keys from the table in the lounge with small aggressive gestures as if he were throwing a strop with the universe.

“We don’t have to, you know,” Phil says as he tentatively reaches for his own jacket. He’s already called a cab and in another ten minutes it will be waiting for them outside. On this at least Phil has managed to win a small concession, to travel to the car rental place in the less volatile environment of a cab rather than expose Dan’s already compromised system to more of the same blustery drafts and congregations of germs via public transport. “You’re not exactly in the best condition to be going out-”

“I am ne—  in the best con— tion to be going — ”

 “What?”

Dan grimaces and tries again in a hushed more careful version of his previous attempt and Phil tries not to focus on how oddly sensuous he sounds, gravelly voiced and husky, despite his strained throat. “I said I’m never in the best condition to go outside, but when I have to and I can, then I do.”

“I already said we don’t have to. You should be resting.”

“Phil, I’m only driving not yodeling. I said I wanted to do this and we will.”

“Fine. At least put on a scarf.”

“Yes, mum.” Dan tries to turn the words into an exaggerated drawl of annoyance but it proves too much for his vocal chords to manage and he ends up doubled over coughing as he makes a hasty retreat to his bedroom to retrieve a scarf before Phil can make another well-meaning but predictable observation.

Scarf acquired, they head down to meet their expected cab and before they bundle into the backseat Dan gives a roving pat to his jacket pocket to ensure he’s remembered his wallet this time. With his wallet accounted for, along with his phone and keys, Dan slides onto the seat next to Phil and gives the driver their destination through a raspy attempt at speech. He tries to pitch his voice lower to make himself audible and to prevent his throat from breaking up every other syllable and vowel into a high frequency wheeze only dogs might be able to hear, but though the driver seems to understand well enough he looks back over his shoulder with a quick glance as if to confirm he’s picked up two human passengers and not the personification of a rock slide. It’s only after they pull away that Dan registers the sound of busy rummaging next to him and he looks over to see Phil sorting through a backpack stuffed beyond capacity with a squashed corner of what is immediately recognizable as their couch’s multicolored throw pillow sticking out of the top.

“Hang on -” Dan stares. “What the hell is that?”

“Hm? Oh, I thought I’d just bring a few things with me.”

“A few things like half the entire flat? We’re literally going an hour away to Orpington. You look like we’re meant to be trekking through Tibet.”

Phil finally retrieves what he’s been looking for between the many other items he’s packed for their trip and pulls his hand back with a contented smile to reveal a packet of Percy Pigs. “Sometimes car rides make me a bit queasy. You know that. So I figured if I brought some things from home to distract me and make me feel more comfortable, it might help. Want one?”  
Phil pops one of the sweets into his mouth, holding it between his teeth by a bright pink strawberry ear, and offers the rest of the bag to Dan who hesitates for a moment before giving a resigned shrug and taking one. What did it matter if Phil’s way of coping with motion sickness amounted to a few harmless creature comforts? There were worse ways of managing his unease, Dan supposes. Phil might have suggested they play I Spy or charades, the latter being a challenge of willpower not to strangle Phil when his lateral thought process, though unique and entertaining in most instances, once more brought him far afield from the actual answer, leaving Dan in a tiny froth of stressful gesticulations having nothing to do with what he was meant to be pantomiming.

The cab ride passes uneventfully, marked only by a  few more helpings of Percy Pigs and colorful commentary from Phil about the view outside their windows as he points out what he swears must be the tiniest Pomeranian in the world, a pair of amorous pigeons perched close together on a shop awning, and a small crowd gathered around a busker with a saxophone (who, upon noticing Phil ogling him from the backseat, proceeds to steadily approach the cab while playing a  jazzy blues number without breaking eye contact in a manner that reads more like a terrifying threat, albeit a musical one.) The day itself however doesn’t bear commenting on. It’s a typical London postcard event of heavy cloud cover which may or may not yield rain, a repeat of the day Phil had returned from the dentist filled with festive nostalgia over a sprinkling of snowflakes which had too quickly melted away. Yet, the unspoken wish for a white Christmas (or a ‘white any day of the week as long as it snowed enough and stayed unmelted enough to count’) remains a strong thought in Phil’s mind. He still isn’t sure if speaking a thought held more power over visualizing it or if both theories were just part and parcel to faulty pseudoscience, but if there was even a slight possibility that thinking about something was enough for it to come true like a mystical thunderbolt gathering energy until it acquired the necessary force to manifest, then he hopes it only applied for positive thoughts and not the overwrought tendency of his mind to create worse case scenarios requiring him to fight his way out of terrible situations. For the time being he fixates on blocking out the more intrusive suggestions of car accidents and saxophone wielding hijackers by meditating instead on what size and shape of tree he wanted to pick out for the lounge as he thoughtfully savors the sweet artificial taste of strawberry flooding his mouth like a potent salve to heal all baser worries.

The flow of traffic through the streets they pass is blessedly light and navigable, for once free of the usual bumper to bumper congestion which prompted them to use the Tube’s more efficient service over the hit or miss nature of arriving anywhere on time in a car. The cab reaches its destination faster than they could have hoped, without any stomach churning hairpin turns or missed collisions with other cabs hell bent on schedules they meant to keep against all odds even at the expense of public safety, including their own. The universe offers nothing to hint at misfortune waiting in the wings until they arrive at the rental location and go inside to find themselves greeted by the sulky indifference of the only employee behind the counter, a middle aged man whose most distinguishing feature Phil can remember with perfect clarity afterwards are the pair of thick black rimmed glasses on his face with lenses the size and shape of tea saucers as if he’d made a point of requesting frames in the same style as Edna Mode’s. They reduce his eyes to beady black dots that despite their distorted appearance are as eloquent as the rest of his facial expression in conveying an air of profound displeasure at seeing them both. The oblique downturn of his mouth into a more severe frown like a myopic librarian tasked with another weekday shift of minding the influx of loud teens invading the aisles of books after school furthers the impression of distinct annoyance. Phil can almost hear his thoughts sigh, ‘christ, here we go again.’

“Hi, sorry,” Phil says, apologizing out of instinctual, English tact for sensing himself to be a nuisance though he knows he’s done nothing wrong to deserve the label. “I made a reservation for a car today?”

“Name.”

Phil never thought one word could contain so many inflections of contempt, but the owlish eyed employee, or Keith as Phil discovers with a quick glance at his nametag, seems to have condescension down to an art.

“Er…Phil Lester. It’s a one day ren-”

“One moment, _please_. Thank you.”  Keith abruptly turns away to check the computer for a record of Phil’s request with a series of thunderous keystrokes to rival the Gatling gun crescendo of the gaming keyboard Dan owned. A result pops up on the screen and Keith stares at it for more time than Phil thinks is necessary for confirming a reservation. The silence continues and with it the tension builds as Phil exchanges a quizzical look with Dan who merely shrugs his shoulders.

“Sorry, but is something wro-”

“There’s no reservation under that name.” The reply is immediate, delivered with a subtle note of wry satisfaction as if he’d been waiting for Phil to break the silence first in order to interrupt.

“No, there has to be. I prepaid for the car on the website and I have the confirma-”

“As per company policy, confirmations are not guarantees of payment, vehicle availability or approval,” Keith says in the drawn out monotone of a lawyer reading out the fine print of a contract for the twentieth time over. “Furthermore, reservations made thru our website are listed in the names of all corresponding drivers. If you did not list your name as a driver then neither the payment nor the reservation will be processed.”

“Oh! In that case it should be listed under Dan Howell.”

“Is Dan Howell here?” Keith doesn’t spare a moment to glance at Dan standing shoulder to shoulder with Phil, his eyebrows raised in well composed patience at the conversation taking place.

“Er- yes. He’s right here.” Phil gestures next to him like a game show model dramatically showcasing a revealed prize. At once, Keith deliberately turns his entire body to face Dan, leaving Phil with the impression he’s been utterly blanked for the rest of the interaction.

“Sir, I’ll need your ID to complete this transaction in your name.”

As Dan hurriedly reaches for his wallet, Keith adds, without looking at Phil, “will your friend also be a listed driver?”

“What- Phil? God, no,” Dan says, with enough conviction to earn him a not so gentle shove on his arm.

“Your choice of vehicle falls under the ‘lucky dip’ package. Accordingly, the vehicle you receive will be subject to availability at time of rental.”

Dan frowns. “Lucky what now?”

Keith’s level of irritation peaks higher, but before he can explain further in the same air of put upon lawyer who would rather be anywhere else, Phil jumps in to clarify.

“Oh, it’s one of the choices they had on the website. You can decide on the exact type of car you want or you could go for this lucky dip option which I thought sounded exciting. It’s like a lottery of sorts where you can get upgraded to a full-size vehicle at the same price you’d pay for economy class, but you don’t know which it’ll be until you actually pick up the car.”

“So we could be driving away in a Vauxhall Corsa or a Mercedes.”

“Basically.”

“Right. I’m not even going to question how that works, even if it sounds like one of those rigged claw machines where you always just manage to miss the prize you really want. Nice sales ploy though. Imagine if we tried that on tour- VIP lucky dip. You could get a meet and greet with Dan and Phil or you could meet and greet their cardboard cutouts.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that would go over so well.”

“Sir, if you could please review the information on the contract so we can finalize the transaction,” Keith interrupts their brief aside and curtly pushes a sizeable sheaf of forms across the counter towards Dan. At a glance it contains the usual fine print of legal jargon about liability and terms of service, but it’s the breakdown of fees and taxes tacked on to the final balance of the bill statement which gives Dan pause and causes his voice to crack into a high pitched wheeze of incredulity.

“Phil….when you said the lucky dip option gave you the chance to rent any car at economy class prices, what did you mean exactly?”

“Huh?”

Dan shows him the papers in explanation and Phil’s eyes widen in shock as he reads off each line detailing a premium location fee, a registration fee, a congestion charge and other unexpected bundles of fees and taxes.

“That’s not…that’s not what was advertised when I clicked on it. It was about forty five pounds then. This is well over double the cost!”

“Reservations made through our website and all received confirmations are not guarantees of payment, vehicle availability or approval,” Keith repeats in a drawn out sigh. “As per the terms of agreement- which is available by the way to read on the website, in the confirmation e-mail and on the contract in front of you-  transactions are completed in person at each rental location and are subject to all applicable standard taxes and fees.”

“What’s standard about a nearly 1,000 pound deposit,” Dan asks, half to himself. “And there’s something else here about insurance?”

“All renters are required to purchase our company insurance which covers roadside assistance, collision damage and conditional repairs.”

“Conditional repairs? Sounds like another ‘lucky dip’ situation,” Dan mutters.

“If you don’t agree with the terms of service, _sir_ , we can cancel your reservation with no charge or obligation.” Keith readies his hands above the keyboard, intent on doing just that and for the first time he looks genuinely happy at the prospect of ridding himself of one more retail related headache. Dan would empathize given the memories of his experience at Asda still haunting him like a fresh nightmare years after the fact, but considering Keith and his company’s bureaucratic red tape was the one thing now standing between them and a Christmas tree all Dan feels is a resigned sense of exasperation.

“Fine. Whatever. Just process the transaction,” he says as he reaches for one of the courtesy biros prepared on the counter to sign the contract with. They’re all stamped with the bright orange logo of ‘Sixt,’ complete with the ubiquitous catchphrase of ‘drive smug’ Dan thinks is in dire need of some rebranding.

 _‘Drive Smug. If the fine print doesn’t drive you mad first,’_ Dan muses as he signs his name with a flourish.

 Keith reluctantly takes the papers back from Dan and returns to portraying a perpetually ticked off Edna Mode. “We accept debit and all major credit cards as methods of payment.”

Dan rummages once more through his wallet and hands over his credit card without complaint, now more concerned with receiving their ‘lucky dip’ vehicle, whether it turned out to be a Mercedes or a Flintstones car, in order to get on with the more enjoyable part of their planned day adventure.

“I’m starting to think renting wasn’t a good idea,” Phil whispers.

“If you mean about our bug bathroom flat or this situation I completely agree, but we’re here now. Let’s just enjoy ourselves. It’s a bit much, but at least we’re in a position to afford it. Anyway- not like we’re buying full-scale marble statues to decorate our lounge with.”

Phil looks immediately intrigued. “But let’s say you wanted to, what statue would you buy?”

“Dunno. I always think something classical when I hear ‘marble statue.’ A Michelangelo replica maybe? You know, like his David sculpture?”

“If you wanted a naked man to look at you could just ask.”

The reply rolls out of Phil’s mouth with a smooth immediacy Dan isn’t prepared for and it takes three tries of Keith calling his name for him to close his agape mouth and snap back to attention as Phil struggles to bite back his laughter.

“Your card, sir.”

Dan isn’t sure if Keith might have overheard their conversation or not, but the frown lines of disapproval in his forehead seemed to have gained a few more horizontal tally marks that weren’t there before and as he stares witheringly from behind his round glasses, Dan looks away, his face warm down to his neckline, and quickly accepts his card back.

With their small ordeal finally concluded, Keith retrieves a clipboard and a set of car keys before leading them without a word to an area marked as ‘service bay.’ Dan can’t find anything to say to fill the small pocket of silence on the way over. His thoughts are still struggling to recover from the small shock Phil had inflicted on his system, rendering him more perfectly speechless than any case of bronchitis. It’s only when Keith leads them into the company’s garage, past a ready fleet of gleaming luxury sports cars, and finally comes to a stop in front of the hefty bulk of a minivan with what looks like a thin layer of dust on the bonnet that Dan finds his voice again.

“Er…is that…?”

“A SEAT Alhambra,” Keith clarifies in a tone that makes him sound as if he’s the one struggling to hold back laughter now. “As part of the Lucky Dip package, it includes the added feature of GPS, usually an optional service provided at an extra charge.”

 _Why am I not surprised_ , Dan thinks.

“Before you leave, I’ll need to check for signs of existing damage on the body of the vehicle to prevent any wrongful damage claims after it’s returned. Feel free to do the same and bring up any related questions you might have.”

Dan thinks he has many questions alright, most of them revolving around why, out of all the cars gathered in the lot, does this have to be their ‘lucky dip selection.”

“Great,” he mutters to Phil as Keith slowly walks around the van, marking off dings and dents on the clipboard in his hands. “We’re the equivalent of U.S soccer moms now. Taking our kids to soccer practice for the soccer game tomorrow.”

“Look at it this way,” Phil says. “It’s large enough we could just slide the tree right into the backseat with space to spare and not have to worry about scratching the coat if we tied the tree on the roof.”

“I guess.”

Keith completes his reconnaissance and Dan decides to take a quick glance around the van himself, just to rule out any details Keith might have ‘conveniently’ missed. However, other than a hairline scratch on the driver’s side door and scuff marks on the tires, nothing else seems out of sorts and Dan gratefully accepts the copy of his signed contract and the set of car keys, his official marks of freedom. On cue, Phil immediately climbs into the front passenger seat, his backpack jostling enthusiastically behind him like a kid racing for the playground after school, and Dan marvels for a second how someone who had such a bad rap with motion sickness could love road trips so much. Maybe it was something to do with the otherwise sedate flicker of scenery outside, providing enough material by way of nature, passing cars and all the strange quirks of happenstance and humanity to engage Phil’s imagination for hours.

 _Or inspire enough material for an endless game of I Spy_ , Dan thinks wryly as he follows Phil’s lead and gets into the driver’s seat.

The dark vinyl upholstery smells faintly unpleasant, but Dan can’t pinpoint exactly what the odor is, whether it’s of wet laundry that’s been left too long in the washing machine or dirty laundry that hasn’t seen a washing machine in months. The pine tree shaped air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror masks it with a stronger scent of chemically derived evergreen and Dan isn’t sure if that’s better or worse. There’s also an imperceptibly low sound he can’t make out, a mechanical buzzing he decides later is most likely from the harsh incandescence of the long fluorescent bulbs overhead illuminating the concrete walls of the garage. He remembers these too from his stint at Asda and recalls the dull monotony of their racket in the early morning hours before the store filled with the greater clamor of customers and trollies as he plodded through the aisles in a drowsy stupor gathering up items meant for home deliveries with the garish soundtrack of the lights overhead providing an unwelcome accompaniment to his thankless task. As they buckle in and Dan turns the key in the ignition, the sound ebbs away under the louder trundle of the engine and he soon forgets it entirely.

A movement in the wing mirror catches his eye and he glances over to notice Keith watching them from a ways back with a smug curve of a smile on his face. Dan as time to wonder if that’s where the Sixt catchphrase originated from- the smug feeling of satisfaction at a well-executed bait and switch. He tries not to let the idea bother him and instead focuses on angling the van out of its tightly quartered parking spot. With a smaller car it would have been a breeze to simply cut the wheel and go, but now, placed in the driver’s seat of a vehicle composed of larger dimensions, he suddenly finds himself with a narrower margin of clearance and more blind spots to compensate for. He’s confident with a bit of care and micromanaged turns of the wheel he can make it to the exit ramp without incident, but Phil’s strangled noises of unease don’t help his attempts at zenful maneuvering.

“Phil, you sound like I’m about to drive us off a cliff.”

“It’s just you got so close to this car on my side.”

“I’m not going to hit it. I can see perfectly well out the mirror and I’m not even close to touching it.”

Phil goes quiet but when the car moves a fraction of an inch to the left, his fingers clench the seat belt strap across his chest as if bracing for impact.

“Would you relax? We’re almost out. Just close your eyes, have another Percy Pig and think happy thoughts.” Dan says it half sarcastically, but Phil promptly follows instructions and pops a sweet into his mouth as he closes his eyes and feigns a meditative hum. With the low sound of ‘ommmm’ filling the air instead of breathy throat rattles of panic, Dan makes it the rest of the way out of the parking spot, through the garage and on towards the exit. The flow of traffic has picked up considerably since they’d left the cab and it takes a few minutes of waiting for the perfect lull of oncoming cars to make the turn from the driveway into his lane. This too ends up being its own unique challenge. Every time Dan inches the van forward, the unassuming looking car in the distance that seemed to be far away enough and slow moving enough to allow him time to merge, speeds up on seeing his intentions, apparently irritated at even the idea of having to slow down. It soon becomes a passive aggressive game of cat and mouse. The van minces forward and every time it does, the cars and lorries on the horizon all speed up to close the distance before Dan can make the turn. Meanwhile, the litany of meditative hums coming from Phil take on a louder, more aggressive quality as Phil keeps his eyes shut, determined to reach nirvana by any means necessary. Then, just as Dan begins to suspect they’ve entered a purgatorial limbo consigning them to an eternity of sitting in a van and waiting for a break that doesn’t seem likely to come anytime soon, a cab slows to drop off a passenger, in turn stopping the traffic behind it. Dan takes his chance and promptly veers out of the garage onto the road proper, not without a quiet sigh of relief quickly echoed by Phil who, sensing the imminent peril to be over, opens his eyes and smiles.

“Heeey, you did it,” he says, genuinely delighted.

Dan gives him a side-eyed glance. “Of course I did. I told you I would. Was there ever any doubt?”

Phil smirks and seems as if he’s about to crack wise about just how many doubts he’d had, but then stops and looks at Dan in a true moment of lingering reflection so intense it makes Dan nearly miss the car stopped at the red light in front of him. He turns his head back in time to brake, but from the corner of his eye he’s aware of Phil’s thoughtful gaze trained only on him.

“No. I never doubted you,” Phil says finally. “I never have. I trust you.”

As always, there are infinite subtleties of meaning behind those words, not including gratitude for Dan’s efforts and confidence in his abilities, and though Dan has heard it all before expressed throughout the years in different ways, spoken and unspoken, contrary to most cynical forecasts about the limited shelf life of true affection between people as those years dragged on, turning proximity into a weary burden where most expressions of compassion lost its shine, the magnitude of everything Phil says and implies remains just as powerful as the first time Dan had encountered it, the first time he’d truly understood its implications- the way Phil said ‘I love you’ without saying it at all. He just hadn’t expected to hear it now, sitting in the middle of congested London traffic behind the wheel of a ‘soccer mom van,’ dealing with the prickly sting of bronchitis while trying not to pass out from the cloying smell of the pine air freshener invading his sinuses. But he supposes that detail was also part of what made all the difference in the direction of his life, the way Phil possessed the ability to shake the routine mundanity of a moment into more creative, unexpected shapes with a strong incentive fixated on loving those he trusted best and conveying that trust in ways that turned the rote passage of time into something more interesting and profound, in the same way his clever wit surprised Dan with phrases and ideas and cheeky comments that usually managed to provoke a laugh no matter how incredulous or taken aback he might have been at the time. It was what made the current trek to buy a Christmas tree and dealing with the hefty rental car bill later on less of an ordeal and more of an enjoyable diversion.

 _Guess that’s what love is supposed to be anyway_ , Dan thinks, s _omething embodying trust, communication and genuine compassion that transcends its definition as an abstract concept no matter how subjective it is, to make every imposed societal constraint somewhat easier to manage; Something that makes all the difficult variables of human existence a bit less bleak, lonely, and meaningless by comparison._

Dan doesn’t realize how slowly he’s been driving though his eyes remain trained on the road. Between the front bumper of the van and the brake lights of the car ahead there’s a considerable gap of distance all the other cars stuck in the one lane of traffic behind the van’s trailing speed are desperate for him to close. A dissonant symphony of klaxons fills the air but they’re muffled by his own racing thoughts keeping time with the rhythmic boom of the pulse in his ears. It’s only when Phil nudges his arm and says, “er, Dan? I think they really want you to move,” that he finally hears the angry protests building in volume and number behind them. He immediately snaps to and switches his attention on catching up with the pace of traffic, but for at least one person in the disgruntled hoard in the rearview mirror his focus returns a moment too late. The road divides into a left turning lane and Dan moves over to remain in the lane going straight. It’s then, after stopping for a red light, that an indomitable tank of an SUV roars up alongside him, propelled by the fury of the driver within it. She leans her entire upper body out of the open driver’s side window, the dowdily styled topknot of a bun bouncing on her head like the misplaced dot of an exclamation point as she yells with spittle flecked indignation, “ _hey, arsehole! If you can’t fuckin’ drive get off the fuckin’ road!_ ”

 Her message aptly delivered she pops back into place behind the steering wheel, still fuming behind her clench jawed grimace and when the green arrow appears overhead she takes the turn into the intersection with a blatting cough of exhaust and a rubber burning screech of tires. A woman about to cross the street with a pram jerks backwards onto the curb and narrowly avoids getting broadsided by the speeding SUV. It doesn’t make it too far in the waiting snarl of traffic down the road when the distinct sound of both its nasally horn and screaming driver become audible once again. Phil stares at the blue cloud of burnt engine oil drifting outside the window next to him, the acrid souvenir of their brief road rage encounter, and before popping another Percy Pig into his mouth he remarks in the most deadpan tone possible, “Well then. She seemed a bit upset, didn’t she?”

 He and Dan glance at each other, eyes shining with conspiratorial humor. On an unseen signal perhaps set off by the furtive snicker which escapes around the sweet in Phil’s mouth with a sound like a balloon leaking air, the surface tension of their composure stretches past its limit and abruptly explodes into uncontrollable sputtering laughter. The light turns green and though the orchestra of klaxons begins again in earnest the millisecond it does, this time as Dan drives off neither of them pays it any mind.

 

❧ ❧ ❧

Twenty minutes later, after the GPS begins to go on the fritz, their phone’s network signal disappears and they’ve discovered the radio, as well as the USB and audio ports on the car are just as faulty, resulting in an argument over what music Phil should play through his iPhone’s speakers to prevent them from traveling in awkward silence all the way to Bromley, (an argument whose main points revolve between, “Phil, I’m really not in the mood for an ABBA marathon.” “How can you not be in the mood for ABBA?” vs. “Yes, I’ve heard you mention M.I.A, Young Thug and Arca, Dan, but they’re not exactly road trip friendly.” “ _Oh?_ Then excuse me if I don’t think movie soundtracks are exactly road trip friendly either.”) the metaphysical glow of love and goodwill dims substantially. Small details like Phil’s subtle chewing noises and the flow of backed up traffic reducing their progress to the speed of a slow clog begins to grate on Dan and after the tenth red light, mirrored in the distance by an endless sea of brake lights, he finds himself questioning the wisdom of their choice to leave the house for what’s turning out to be an ill-fated journey.

 _This was a mistake from the start. You should have thought about this more, analyzed all the details rather than impulsively blundering ahead in blind frustration with yourself. Way to fall into your old habit of fucking things up, Dan. You dream up scenarios in which you’re always the hero, always the clever one, always ten steps ahead of yourself and everyone else, but when push comes to shove you’re always the one twenty steps behind. Now here you are wasting time and money on getting nowhere at all because you didn’t have a plan so much as a rough idea that didn’t have a stable enough foundation of practicality to work. It’s the same way you wasted your time in uni; the same way you waste your time now during those long murky days hiding under layers of blankets and self-loathing because you can’t face the worst of your mistakes without applying a thick veneer of excuses to disguise your shortcomings. Because confronting your problems would mean confronting yourself and seeing how much of a fool is reflected back. You knew subconsciously this wouldn’t work, but you did it anyway and now you have no one else to blame for being aggravated other than yourself. Now you have to sit there and deal with being stuck inside a car that smells like the moldy basement of a thrift store while Phil pretends to be blissfully oblivious to the uncomfortable mess you forced him into all because you couldn’t suck it up and deal with sitting your entitled ass down instead of trying to run away from your problems._  
Who do you think you are? What makes you think you deserve to take a holiday from a career others would kill to have? Taking road trips to buy Christmas trees on the off days when you’re not playing video games for views? Come on now. What a joke. You’re a joke. This, what you’re doing right now, is a joke. And you know it and Phil knows it.  
Off chasing ideas of happiness and self-care when what you should be doing is working on making a viable strategy for the rest of your life before everything you’ve accomplished goes arse up, right at the point when the social media influencer bubble pops, helped along by the haphazard mechanics of YouTube’s wonky algorithm, and not even a string of world tours or bestselling books or increasing audience numbers can keep you afloat anymore. Everyone else knows what they want to do and where they want to be and what makes them truly happy and here you are on your way to pick out a tree from a farm on the off chance it will make you forget everything you’re deliberately avoiding because you’re too scared and uncertain of yourself to admit you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. You never have. Do you really think this makes any difference? Do you think the way you’re wasting your time and talents on forgettable diversions, amateurish videos and ridiculous blurbs on twitter makes any real impact in comparison to people your age and younger who use every opportunity available to accomplish things that truly matter? You can’t make up your mind on anything, not even on who you want to be, so instead you contrive escapist fantasies and practice exercises in avoidance to keep from remembering how lost you really are.

“Dan, are you listening to me? I said I think we’re lost.”

“What?” The sardonic jeer of his subconscious cuts out and the panorama of car bumpers and idling lorries returns in sharp focus as Dan jolts back from the churning whirlpool of too many bad thoughts cramming his head with a perceptible weight, enough to reflexively crane his neck forward as if he were wearing a collar with a ten ton anvil attached. He catches a glimpse of himself in the transparent reflection of the windshield, hunched Atlas-like in his seat, straining the belt strap across his chest, exactly as if he were supporting the bulk of the earth on his shoulders, and he quickly straightens up.

Immediately, relief floods in as his muscles relax and his jaw unclenches, though a residual tug of tension remains like a disturbed spirit biding its time to creep back into his head and haunt him with echoed whispers of uncomfortable truths and well-rehearsed lies he can’t help but to believe during times of internal crisis when the loudest voice of reason was the unreasonable taunts of his inner critic.

 “I think we should have taken the exit back there.” Phil turns in his seat and points to an invisible point on the receding horizon of glimmering car bonnets behind them.

“But we’re meant to stay on the A2. The GPS didn’t say anything about getting on the A243.”

“The GPS isn’t saying much at all right now.”

They both glance at the frozen screen of the map where a small orange dot continues to indicate their geographical position as miles behind where they currently were. When Dan had first set their destination the results hadn’t shown anything more complex about their route other than a few cursory turns onto residential streets at the end of their journey, making it relatively easy to guess where they needed to go despite the GPS no longer working as intended to update their position. Perhaps Phil was right. Maybe, while Dan’s conscious had been too preoccupied with the unwarranted bullying from his subconscious, they’d missed a crucial exit. Dan can’t remember well enough to argue either way and Phil seems resolutely confident. It’s not completely reassuring however, given Phil’s track record of confusing his right for his left and his penchant for losing his way while in public parks or shopping centres, but with little else to go on in the absence of a mobile signal or a functioning GPS, and utterly relieved to have something else to think about in lieu of returning back to an agonizing meditation of his life choices, Dan settles on taking the next indicated exit to retrace their route back to the A243.

A hawk soars out of the wispy gloom of clouds then, its broad wings spread like sails as it catches an updraft and floats along the current, placidly surveying the landscape of cars and houses below its purview. Phil spots it instantly, honing in with his uncanny ability to notice any animal, be it a preening sparrow outside their flat or a squirrel half hidden in a park’s undergrowth, and his head perks up at once with unbridled excitement.

“Look! Look!” He points at the upper part of the windshield just before the frame blocks the sky from view and they both take a second to observe the hawk’s gliding path with hushed awe. It’s huge and even in the grey obscured afternoon light Dan can clearly make out the gradated reds and browns of its plumage. Phil makes a soft noise of praise somewhere between a sigh and a breathless ‘wow.’ The sight itself isn’t anomalous. They’d both seen hawks in wildlife documentaries before and they’d discussed the news reports of officials releasing hawks around London as a means of pigeon population control, a measure Phil had thought a bit barbaric at the time, but somehow, witnessing one cruise through the air above their heads, in an area no more exotic than any urban sprawl of houses typical to most London boroughs, lends its presence a miraculous aura, like observing the appearance of something beautiful and rare in a place not usually known for beautiful or rare things. It seems to follow the van, though Dan knows it’s only a coincidence brought on by the direction of the wind steering the hawk in their direction. Once the wind changed or something more interesting and food oriented came along, the hawk would most certainly flap its wings and turn itself along a diverted path far from theirs, but for now it follows them, leading their route like an unexpected guide and Dan exchanges glances at the road with glances at the sky and smiles.

 _How small do we look to you up there,_ he thinks. _Just gliding along, doing your thing, far away from humans and their problems. Well, until our pollution crisis catches up with you anyway, along with every other living thing’s habitat. But in the meantime, you look so peaceful. Wish I could join you honestly... I could use the perspective of distance sometimes. I mean, how nice would that be_ , _where all it takes is something as simple as exactly that- the perspective of distance, love and laughter to make things less terrible and overwhelming, where I can clearly see all the choices available to me and I can know instinctively which ones I should take to better achieve everything I dream possible. Wouldn’t that be something? Free as a bird. Everything melting away into a pinpoint vista where existence doesn’t feel like such a fatalistic shot in the dark. Wonder if that’s the type of rapture astronauts feel like when they’re up in space looking back at earth, far away from the gravitational pull of earthbound hassles and obligations- political, social, personal or otherwise. Where they’re allowed to ‘just be,’ in the simplest, most empirical sense of the phrase, for one suspended moment in time, without judgement or expectation. That’s happiness right there. Or a version of it. To just be- quietly and vibrantly, far above and away from everything, including yourself. To have a better point of view that isn’t so up close and personal to everything painful and overwhelming or to have a point of view that doesn’t make everything seem like more than I can handle, where I can recharge, reset and reenter my life stronger and wiser than before._

Distance.

Dan considers the winding road ahead, the billowing canvas of clouds above, the minute fidgeting of Phil next to him attempting to follow the hawk’s gliding path, and in these small details, detached from the chokehold of his thoughts and the lingering demands of unread emails, unanswered questions and prescheduled meetings, Dan finds a bit of much needed solace. It’s not an instant cure-all, but there’s a profound restorative quality to the moment he can’t deny and doesn’t try to. In Phil, once again, he finds the reliable presence of someone loved and trusted- more importantly, someone able to provide the perspective of laughter and levity he needs right now. In the choice to change pace and embark on their impromptu road trip, ill-fated or not, he finds the perspective of something new and interesting to entertain him, if only for a time. It’s not a life altering realization. His mood doesn’t miraculously shed itself of the ever present squeeze of anxiety lurking beneath his surface thoughts, but he finds a much coveted pocket of calm soothing enough for him to settle back into his seat and focus on the road without a crushing monologue of doubt overlaying the low bursts of static from the radio.

The sense of tranquility persists long after the hawk veers off into the darkening clouds; enduring even Phil’s excited run-on commentary about everything from hawks, I Spy and a string of loosely connected ideas in between, including wondering aloud why anyone would name a place, ‘Orpington’ and whether or not Dan also thought it sounded like the name of the bugs in Final Fantasy 9.  
“You know the ones I mean,” he says. “That weird beetle Cid turns into at one point.”  
Prompting a wearily amused Dan to reply, “They’re called oglops, which doesn’t sound anything like Orpington, but I understand what you mean. It’s like the name of a town you’d only find in an RPG. Or England.”

Eventually however, after an hour of meandering along an ever narrowing road with no other cars sharing the lane of traffic behind them and no signs indicating their imminent approach to the oddly named Orpington, Phil’s energy and dialogue peters out to the mutual realization that perhaps taking the exit onto the A243 might have been the wrong choice after all.

 They’ve left the angry carpark of traffic miles ago and the scenery outside progressively turns more rural and expansive by the second as the distance between one house and the next increases until the only visible landmarks becomes rugged farmland without any discernible houses or barns attached, along with isolated bundles of woodland breaking off occasionally into sprawling fields that for all their beauty don’t offer any hints of the Christmas tree farm they’d traveled out here to find.

“I’ve got a feeling…” Phil begins hesitantly.

“Yeah so do I,” Dan says, “and somehow I don’t think it has anything to do with the Black Eyed Peas.”

“Wha- oh, yeah no.” Phil laughs as he quickly catches on.

“We’re lost, aren’t we? More than we were to begin with I mean.”

“Pretty much.”

“And there’s no one around to ask for directions and no GPS and no mobile signal to help us out either.”

“Seems that way.”

“So we should have stayed on the A2.”

“….seems that way.” Phil looks out the window at nothing in particular as he fiddles with the empty bag of Percy Pigs in his hand. The crinkling sounds increase in volume and speed as he worries the corners of the bag between his fingers, folding and unfolding it like a bad attempt at origami, until Dan reaches over with one hand and plucks it away, tossing it in a crumpled ball into the backseat.

“Right,” he says with a business like air. “It’s safe to say we’re utterly, unequivocally lost, but the van has a full tank of petrol or just about enough to last a good while. There’s nothing else for it then except to keep driving. So, we’ll do exactly that until we can figure something out or find someone to ask where we are and where to go. It’s fine.”

“You sure?” Phil asks quietly. “We’ve wasted enough time already, what if we don’t make it there before they close?”

Dan shrugs. “We rent the car another day, stay somewhere close by and just take the tree home tomorrow. It’s not like we’re stranded in the middle of the Amazon or some abandoned lakeside camp with a masked serial killer waiting to grab us.”

“Plenty of woods around where one could be hiding though,” Phil remarks with a hint of his characteristic smirk, though an air of chagrin over his bad navigational advice remains evident in the tense slope of his shoulders.

“In that case,” Dan says, “if we do encounter anybody accessorizing themselves with a hockey mask and a machete, I’ll just let them speak to you first. Nothing like a guy with an encyclopedic knowledge of hawk facts to scare anyone off.”

“You never know. Maybe all Jason needed was to watch a few hours of Planet Earth so he could chill out and take in the wonder of nature.”

“Somehow I don’t think coming back from the dead after drowning is an experience that watching a nature documentary can help someone ‘chill out’ from, but alright.”

“I’m just saying, after witnessing an iguana’s narrow escape from a pit of snakes you can never really look at things the same way again. One minute you’re chasing campers with a machete then the next you’re sat crying into your popcorn over the circle of life.”

“Jason Voorhees, the closet sentimentalist,” Dan says thoughtfully. “Yeah, I’d watch that installment of the franchise.”

“David Attenborough vs. Jason. Coming to Imax this summer.”

“I’m preordering my tickets now. And look- there’s the setting of the movie. The great rolling hills of outer London surrounded by that most rare and exotic species of creature known as the sheep.”

 Phil turns to look at the wooden picket fence lining the left side of the road all the way into the indistinguishable horizon and for the first time notices the candy flossed shapes of grazing sheep nonchalantly munching on tufts of fescue. Sensing the queue of exclamation points building in Phil’s thoughts, Dan slows down and at once Phil lowers the window and lets out a nasally bleat of a hello to the small flock. Their methodical chewing stops and each one in their number looks up at the figures in the van with comically nonplussed expressions. Phil tries again and Dan is certain the sheep glance at each other with something now approaching dumbfounded shock at the idea of a human attempting to communicate with them. They don’t utter a sound however or make a movement to indicate anything beyond cagey hesitance, but Phil, undeterred, continues to unselfconsciously attempt contact at maximum volume. Dan wonders if he’s about to try chanting “Baa Ram Ewe” next to get them to talk back, when suddenly, one sheep, a bit braver than the others, lets out a small ‘baa’ in reply. Phil enthusiastically ‘baa’s’ back. Another sheep answers. Then another and another. Soon the entire group joins in, filling the once idyllic quiet of their fields with raucous bleating and Dan brings the van to a standstill, unable to see the road past blinding tears of laughter.

“Call me Phil Lester, master of sheep!”

“Sure, alright. Whatever you say,” Dan chokes out when he’s finally able to take a breath. “Move over Thor, there’s a new contender for the throne of Asgard.”

He wipes his eyes and shifts the van back into drive before any local passerby could accuse them of harassing the domestic wildlife, but then does a double take at the scene unfolding outside Phil’s passenger side window.

“Oh my god.”

The sheep, having apparently formed a kinship with Phil courtesy of whatever speech he’d unwittingly given in their ovine language, begin to follow the van at a brisk trot beside the fence like a troop of soldiers falling into the pace of a quick march, trailing an unending chorus of baa’s in their wake.

“Yes, follow me!” Phil grins and with another gleeful ‘baa’ leans out the window, arms spread wide as if ready to embrace his wooly brethren.

Dan nearly chokes with the struggle to adequately voice the volume of his amused distress, but in his current state he can only manage a broken wheeze. “Stop encouraging them!”

“But they just want to be my friend!”

“No, they’re just giving in to their herd instinct with you calling out to them like that. If you don’t stop they’ll probably keep following us all the way back to the flat.” He says it half seriously and finds himself in danger of losing it all over again as the sheep bobble along in a hurried attempt to keep up with the van and their newfound human compatriot inside. Some nearly trip over themselves and each other in their haste to keep the vehicle within sight, but when the tires pick up speed, faster than their knobbly legs can manage, the sheep relent their heated pursuit and finally stop. In the reflection of the rearview mirror they group into a huddle and watch the van disappear, not without a few disconsolate sounding baa’s as a last word of farewell to their strange human friend.

When he’s no longer able to see them over the curving slope of the road behind them, Phil settles back into his seat and raises the window, looking quite pleased with himself as he laughs.  
“That was incredible! It was like we were having an entire conversation.”

“And god knows what they thought you were saying- something along the lines of a rally for world domination probably. Oh sure, you laugh now, but I’ve seen that Monty Python sketch. One minute they’re grazing in a field, the next you’ve got a flock of killer sheep going on a country wide crime spree holding up banks and invading unassuming council estates.”

“Nah, they looked pretty reasonable. They’d most likely join parliament and help us out of this Brexit mess.”

“Among other so called messes,” Dan mutters. He intends to continue on the subject of questioning the wisdom behind electing sheep to positions of power and what kind of metaphorical message that might send, if it might turn out to be something like Animal Farm vs. Winnie the Pooh, but abruptly cuts himself off and squints up at the clouds again when a flicker of movement catches his attention.

“Hang on. Is that…?”

“Snow!” Phil immediately identifies the translucent specks dusting the sky and all thoughts of sheep and politics disappears from their minds. One snowflake floats down onto the windshield and Phil leans forward, stretching his seatbelt to the limit in order to inspect the tiny crystalline networks of ice making up its unique symmetry. In seconds, it melts into a quivering bead of water on the glass. More flutter down to join the first and though many dissolve, many others keep their shape for much longer, fusing with other snowflakes to form a delicate scrim of white frost on the edge of the wipers. It’s not much to fuss over and Dan already suspects it won’t prove to be a spectacle beyond the meager snow flurries they’re seeing now, but in the open space of the expansive hills and fields on either side of the van it makes for a pretty picture, somehow more stunning than seeing it drift onto the tops of impatient commuter cars and the accumulated eyesore of construction sites dotted around London’s gritty urban thoroughfares. In any other circumstance it would make up the overly romanticized vista most tourists expected to find when they imagined the English countryside full of Tolkien-esque forests bordering chocolate box villages dotted with rolling farms, quaint gardens and thatched cottages. Now however, the scene doesn’t appear overly romantic at all. Not as much as it’s quietly stunning, secluded from the everyday roar and bustle of London’s crowds.

 _Or it could just be that whole ‘perspective of distance’ making it seem more than it is_ , Dan thinks. _That whole philosophy behind the idea of_ ‘ _getting away from it all’ and how it sometimes helps when it comes to appreciating certain details I might overlook when I’m bogged down by the rhythm of the routine. Like how taking holidays can be strangely rejuvenating just by virtue of being somewhere new, even if it turns out to be an hour drive to a Christmas tree farm in Bromley that you’re unable to find. Or maybe it has to do with the company you’re with- that idea again of how some people have a knack for elevating the ordinary into something else completely, the way simple things like sheep and snow become noteworthy details because the person you care about cares about them so much. Suddenly, what Phil gives importance to is important to me, the same way we give a damn about each other and what we like, so that even if no one else gives a damn it’s alright because we do and that’s enough. It was always us first anyway, just the two of us guided by mutual interests and ideas not everyone else was on board with. Even if Phil never always agreed at least he tried to understand and made room for me to grow the way I wanted to- the way I needed to, fuck ups and all- so that here we are now, cruising around in a rental car in the small window of free time afforded to us before the tour starts, enjoying this new chapter of our lives and seeing where it takes us from here, with all the consequent mistakes and self-doubt that might crop up._

The lurking specter of mental tension quietly insinuates itself once again without invitation or warning like a snide retort to his current hopeful stream of consciousness and as Dan watches the snow drizzle onto the road, for a moment, as the horizon stretches inexorably towards a static backdrop of muted grey clouds, it looks and feels like nothing more than what it is- snow on a random road in England, devoid of any motivational or sentimental significance. He’s seized then by a sudden teeth clenching sense of exasperation, tired of the constant back and forth of his thoughts furiously boiling away to no other effect than to scald him with troubling worries and contradictions he’s unable to shape into any helpful conclusions just when he thought he was finally close to making up his mind, like a riddle without an answer; as if optimism were a favorite story he was constantly bookmarking and unbookmarking in his mind as he fell in and out of favor with the author, compelled by the rapidly shifting currents of circumstance and his own mercurial perspective to make the very idea of optimism seem at times more contrived than it was supposed to be. A spark of urgency briefly seizes him with the idea that he’s once again wasting his time here. That what he called the perspective of distance was merely a self-indulgent argument deflecting his true motivation of running away from everything he couldn’t handle and what he called the importance of presence, the comfort of having someone he loved, someone whom he trusted, and who in turn cared for him and understood him or tried to, was merely the mark of a dependent weakling who feared the threat of repulsion and abandonment because he couldn’t stand the idea of having to endure his own company.

It’s a quicksilver sting of a mood that gradually fades, helped in part by Phil’s wondering noises of appreciation at the falling snow providing a grounding point back to the present moment, but the aftershocks of its visit linger in the unconscious clench of Dan’s jaw. Funny how all it took was one errant thought spurred on by a poorly mixed biochemical cocktail of impulses and misfired signals to spoil all feelings of progress and comfort in an avalanche effect of bleak self-reflection.

  _But it’s the attempt to define those moments and not have it define me that matters._ Dan’s grip on the steering wheel tightens in reflexive emphasis. _Just wish I could always believe that. That all it really takes is effort and will to give every crisis better context. Or at least I wish I could convince my brain that it doesn’t have to always overcomplicate and overcompensate when it’s difficult to find any meaningful context at all. Or even when meaning isn’t necessary I wish I could just allow things to mean nothing, to step back, let go and still feel alright for it at the end of the day. I know when I hesitate and overanalyze situations it’s just a reaction to some residual fear about not having agency over myself or my life and I know from experience that fear doesn’t have to hold me back from doing what I truly care about- what truly makes me happy- no matter what other people think or say about it, even if it’s just my own thoughts doing all the editorializing. And I know I’m not wasting my time here. It’s not just about the tree or spending time away from home and work. It’s all part of the larger process of helping me figure out what I want to do next in my life; who I want to be and where I want to go. But I wish I could conquer everything that prevents me from wholeheartedly believing that to be true so I could enjoy moments like this without questioning it to death later._

“Hey, Dan? You think we might get a white Christmas after all?” Phil suddenly interjects with a more pertinent question of his own and Dan embraces it like a long sought after oasis in a desert, grateful for a more comfortable change in subject to focus on.

“Maybe,” he says. “Or maybe not. Not to be a complete buzzkill about it, but if anything I bet we’ll catch the brunt of a real snowstorm well after Christmas, say around late February or March and every reporter will give it a strangely ominous name like one of those tabloid articles about monstrous cryptids stomping around people’s backyards at night. ‘The Beast from the East,’ or something like that.”

“The Pest from the West,” Phil says thoughtfully and, as if it were an adlib challenge they’d both tacitly agreed to play right then and there, Dan answers without missing a beat, “The Grouch from the South.”

Phil purses his lips and fumbles for something appropriate before blurting out, “The Dork from the North.”

“That…doesn’t exactly rhyme.”

“Well, neither does ‘Grouch from the South.’ Though, after thinking about it, that’s a pretty fair descriptive for you,” Phil says with a too satisfied looking grin.

“Excuse me. I am not a grouch. But if you want to play it like that, Mr. Smartass, then ‘Dork from the North’ is one incredible self burn.”

“More like, Sheep Lord Lester from Manchester, am I right?” Phil pokes Dan’s shoulder with a pair of finger guns.

“One, you’re trying too hard. Two, stop.”

This only prompts Phil to hum a verse of Dua Lipa’s ‘New Rules’ under his breath and Dan feigns a groan of put upon suffering. The good natured atmosphere remains with them as the conversation segues from snow back to sheep and on towards other colorful tangents, leaving no room for Dan’s mind to repopulate itself with introspections he has no energy or desire to entertain. The snow continues to fall at a placid rate outside and the cold air sustaining it begins to seep in through a small draft around the windows. Dan feels it first at the tip of his fingers, then in a rill of a shudder down his back. Though neither of them mentions it, the chill in the air speaks volumes in their stead and heat becomes a mutually agreed upon imperative. Phil grasps for the button to switch it on and in his blind hurry to thaw the artic tingle at the tip of his nose, hits the hazard lights, the defroster button and the am/fm tuner in quick succession. He finds the correct one at last, right at the point when Dan starts worrying he might find a hidden self-destruct button first. Warm air cycles through the air vents as he turns the dial to its maximum setting and soon the car shifts from the internal temperature of an igloo to that of a balmy spring day.  It’s a cozy feeling that lasts a few miles when suddenly a new unpleasant odor seeps in through the vents, overpowering the tiny pine tree air freshener and irritating Dan’s already sore throat.

He wrinkles his nose. “God, what is that? It’s like burning plastic.”

“You’re right. I-” Phil means to say something else but his throat tightens and he dissolves into a hacking cough as if he were the one with bronchitis now instead of Dan. His hand flaps at the button again, this time to shut off the heat before whatever slowly corroding fan belt was responsible for the stench could either suffocate him or set the van on fire.

“Great, we’re going to freeze the rest of the way there,” Dan mutters.

“Better to freeze than be stranded on the side of the road with our rental turning into a bonfire.”

“At least then we’d be warm. Wonder if that’s covered in the insurance we had to pay for or if it’s another one of those provisional terms and conditions listed in the fine print we’ll find out about later when they send us a bill to cover the damages.”

“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t try to pin something like that onto us, not if we didn’t cause it, but let’s not talk about something that hasn’t happened yet,” Phil says with a determined air Dan knows is half inspired by Phil’s own reluctance to focus on the negative and also inspired by a vaguely superstitious inclination to avoid calling down terrible circumstances before they’d occurred, regardless if he was only discussing the idea in theory. “Besides, the most pressing issue right now is us still not having a clue where we are.”

“Well, there’s a sign ahead that says Headley lane, so there’s a start. It also suggests a hint of civilization might be found somewhere close by. You know, other than sheep.”

Beyond the sign Dan points out, the road progresses off into the distance without any further turn offs or markers of human existence to be found. Faced with the choice to make a detour on to a new road or continue along the one they’ve been following aimlessly for well over an hour at the risk of going beyond the wall and hitting a wormhole straight back into Hadrian’s time, Phil quickly agrees with the decision to turn right onto Headley lane in the hopes they might be able to find someone who can set them onto the correct path towards Christmas trees and not more empty rustic views, no matter how serene. It becomes clear however, as the van takes a winding path through a wooded area with a notable lack of humanity, cars or sheep, that asking for directions might prove to be more difficult than previously imagined. This deviation isn’t without its own charm though. The trees bending over the road in a meticulously pruned canopy provide a stunning backdrop with overhanging branches dusted with snow, ironically Tolkien-esque in its primeval resemblance to Lothlórien. The small forest proceeds ahead of them down the road and all signs of farmlife, ovine and otherwise, have been replaced by glimpses of twittering sparrows and the occasional foraging squirrel. It’s the bright red dart of a cardinal however that catches Phil’s attention as it zips merrily from branch to branch, the one rebellious spot of color in a monochrome world. It makes a beeline for an open patch of ground on the side of the road and pauses for breath on top of a weathered sign Phil struggles to read through the thin film of frost covering the letters.

“Whitehill….carpark?”

Dan squints. “Not much of a carpark to be honest. But then it doesn’t seem like there’s many cars around here to do any parking with.”

“Wait- let’s stop for a second. I think I can see other signs further inside.”

“Unless there’s a WiFi hotspot I don’t know why we’d need to stop here. Unless you want us to be the protagonists of a horror movie or some Let’sNotMeet story.”

“It’s still daylight out and we’re not about to go hiking through here. I just thought some of the signs might have a map or something, like the type you see posted around campsites and motorway service areas. At least then we’d know where we are.”

 Deciding it pointless to argue when Phil was firmly set in his convictions and thinking he could use a break from driving, Dan navigates into the small clearing. The cardinal startles from its perch with an angry sounding trill as the van’s tires crunch through the gravel, producing a racket that’s amplified by the muffled silence accompanying the falling snow. Dan has no trouble finding a place to stop the car in the otherwise deserted environs of the questionably named carpark, more like an unpaved patch of dirt ending in more woodland on one side and a more impressive view of steep, pastoral hills covered in snow on the other side. He chooses a spot at random, shifts into park and switches off the ignition. Between the first metallic ticks of the cooling engine, well before Dan can take a breath to say anything else or comment on the slightly post-apocalyptic feel of solitude here, Phil is out of his seat and off like a shot, apparently more pleased at the chance to stretch his legs than to check the sign board posted between a scruffy overgrowth of wild hedges. The only sound outside comes from the far off argument of birds in the trees and the crunching path of Phil’s trainers making their way over to a snow covered group of signs. Inside the van, as Dan unbuckles his seatbelt, the same high pitched electric buzz from before returns, low but insistent enough to register as something anomalous.

 _So it had nothing to do with the fluorescent lights in the rental garage after all_ , he thinks. _Then what the hell is it?_

Many things pertaining to the mechanics of vehicle engines and various related systems of alternators, spark plugs and pistons remained a mystery to him. The strategies and applied skills of F1 drivers fascinated him, but beyond a slew of bookmarked entries on Wikipedia and cursory glances at tabbed news articles to help supplement his fascination with a better understanding of the topic, he was no gearhead. The whining buzz could be an indication of something or it could just be nothing. It wasn’t as if he relied on driving frequently enough to be an expert on what sounds were normal and which were not. He remains still and listens to the expanding metal parts of the engine continue to tick and clank as the oil within cooled. Who knew if the buzzing sound was just another sign of the van’s systems resetting after being turned off.

“Dan! Come look! There’s a map here!” Phil calls out to him and the sound of his voice further angers the cardinal perched on its new vantage point of a tree branch across the road. It promptly zooms off further away from them, letting out a series of affronted sounding vocalizations, presumably at the idea of being ousted from one of its favorite haunts by a pair of noisy humans.

The strange noise remains a point of concern, but eager to get a whiff of fresh air that isn’t tinged with the smell of chemical pine and burning plastic, Dan finally shuts the door on the unsolvable mystery inside the van and makes his way over to join Phil.

“So, do you know where we are now,” he asks.

“Er, yeah actually. We’re in Mickleham.” Phil pauses. “…In Surrey.”

Dan’s next cry of, “ _we’re where now?_ ” fractures off into a bronchitic gasp, but Phil interprets the strangled gargles as the expression of disbelief it is and continues.

“More specifically, we’re in the middle of the Surrey Hills. Guess we traveled further off course than we originally thought...”

“You think?” Dan clears his throat with a hacking cough and gets his breath back. “Nice. We go from knowing where we are to now having no clue how to get to Bromley from here.”

“According to the map, if we keep going on Headley lane, there are a few villages in the area where we could stop to ask for directions, but it’ll take us a while.  We could also walk on the hiking trail through there. There’s something about a café which should be located at the end of it.” Phil points off through a thick copse of trees to a rude footpath almost completely shrouded in a steadily increasing mound of snow. Dan says nothing and pointedly stares at the path then back to Phil who once again catches the message and laughs.  
“I know, I know. We’d freeze before we made it three feet and we’re not exactly equipped to go for a hike without knowing how long the trail goes on for or if the café is even open at all, though a hot sugary drink would hit the spot right about now.”

“I can’t believe you’re even half serious about wading through a forest in freezing temperatures for a macchiato. Your sweet tooth will be the death of us.”

“No better way to go though, right?”

“There’s always the alternative of having a corgi suffocate me by sleeping on my face,” Dan says thoughtfully.

“Or that too.” Phil glances back at the sign board and his mouth compresses into a pinched line of disappointment. “Honestly, the map looks so old who knows if it’s still up to date or if the café still exists at all, but at least there’s a place close by where we can try to find help if nothing else works out.”

“If nothing else works out we could turn into hermits and live off the grid out here in the middle of Surrey, surviving off the land and communicating with sheep all day. At this rate, if the petrol runs out, we’ll have to do that anyway,” Dan says dryly. He ambles over to a crumbling retaining wall half swallowed by dried weeds and stops to take in the view of the eponymous Surrey hills as if staking out possible sites for their future reclusive hideaway. He considers it in a flash of a daydream, the both of them living out a bucolic lifestyle, shearing their flock of sheep and drinking tea on the porch of a rusticated cottage before retiring for the evening to yell insults at a glowing LCD screen while playing Fortnite.

Phil seems to intuit exactly what he’s picturing as he sidles up to stand shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the snow falling from the sky as he remarks, “I mean, hypothetically, it doesn’t seem so bad out here, though I’m more of a ‘penthouse suite with a lush rooftop garden overlooking a scenic skyline’ kind of guy.”

“Oh, I understand.” Dan smirks. “The ‘king of the universe’ wants to be able to keep watch over his domain. I’ve told you before, The Lion King was a bad influence on you growing up.”

Phil laughs and turns back to look at the flitting reappearance of the cardinal swooping through the open air above the hills. Dan studies him in turn; parses together the details making up the avid, tall man next to him, the one whose eyes follow the birds and the snow with genuine interest as if these things were novel occurrences worthy of rapt attention. White flecks gather on the faux fur lined edges of his hooded coat and speckle his hair in fast accumulating layers, giving him the ethereal mien of a misplaced winter deity. Dan knows Phil must feel the icy sting of the snow melting on his head as well as the gnawing bite of the wind picking up speed through the trees, but Phil continues to stand in place without complaint, taking in the view with a reverent look on his face, each breath puffing out through his nose in tiny clouds of steam. It’s then, quite suddenly, prompted by nothing in particular other than the particular details making up all of who Phil was, each one mundane and simultaneously exceptional by equal degrees, Dan’s head fills with one warm, heart thrilling rush of a thought:

  _I love you._

It sits in his mind, whole and unspoken, without any follow-ups of embellishment or hyper analysis to diminish it. In the past it might have been different story, but now he no longer felt a need to dissect the how’s and why’s accompanying a feeling which had long ago segued from the confusing era of wondering whether it was real, of worrying whether it was lasting and healthy, to encompassing an emotion so ingrained and instinctual, so part of his own wellbeing, that the usual questions of doubt no longer applied. In Phil he’d found trust, he’d found encouragement; he’d found himself. More so, he’d found something approaching the ideal of happiness and self fulfilment he dearly wanted in his life. A line of Sartre’s occurs to him then and he wonders over it as the cardinal traces another colorful circuit against the sky: “ _It is not in some hiding-place that we will discover ourselves; it is on the road, in the town, in the midst of the crowd, a thing among things, a human among humans.”_

A chilled breeze tousles his hair and he takes a breath of it in. He finds it refreshingly brisk, filling his lungs and traveling up to his brain like a spark of clarity. In the brief pause before the exhale, that singular clarity gives way to an epiphanic calm. He sees a chance to build a bridge between his aspirations and his current reality, to create a future where the best of himself could be allowed to express itself without reservation or fear, where the infinite possibilities he yearned to realize in his career and personal life could finally be acted upon without hesitating to second guess his motivations and potential.

Suddenly, he realizes, in this place he’d stumbled upon by accident, accompanied by the welcome presence of someone he loved, someone he’d met through a similar happenstance of accidental serendipity, Dan sees a fleeting vision of himself and the image reflected back gives him hope; a pulse racing variety of optimism that defies every subconscious grumbling against it.

“What are you thinking about now,” Phil murmurs and for the first time Dan turns to notice Phil staring patiently at him.

“Nothing too dire. Bit soppy to be honest,” Dan says. “Just had an idea I’d like to take this moment home with me.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just one of those things. The way some moments feel so special you have an urge to either share them with the people you care about or consign it to memory to treasure it for yourself. This whole place, this moment right here and now, feels bigger than me. You know, so quiet and beautiful and lovely. I dunno... It’s one of those moments I want to bottle up the essence of and bring back with me so I can use it to inspire me in every aspect of my life when I need it most; when I need a break from those days where it feels like I’m just slogging through the hours to survive instead of enjoying the process of accomplishing something. Like a reminder that the world is bigger than my worst fears about it.”  
Dan pauses to think, then adds, “or bigger than my worst fears about myself.”

“Kind of like why you bought that can of air on Mount Fuji?”

“Sort of.” Dan smiles at the memory. “Though granted, that was more an ironic purchase of ridiculous but unique touristy kitsch.”

“Of course,” Phil says with a knowing, amused look.

“It’s the same idea though. So many things haven’t gone to plan, but it still feels nice being here. It feels _right_. And I just want things to feel right from now on going forward. To know that even when things aren’t at their best I’m still taking steps towards living the life I want to lead; towards cultivating my true self instead of becoming a parody of who other people think I am or think I should be.”

“Is that how you really feel?” Phil asks softly. “Like a parody of yourself?”

“Sometimes?” Dan brushes away the rime gathering at the edge of his coat sleeves as a few crumbs of ice break loose and drip down onto the bared skin of his wrist. He does this for longer than strictly necessary and it takes him another longer moment to look up and make eye contact with Phil again. “I’ve already told you how some nights my thoughts align themselves just so, in such a way I can’t control and in those instances I think that’s exactly what I am. We’re both not the same people we were when we first started messing around with cameras and video ideas. YouTube isn’t what it was either. And it’s not keeping up with all the changes that worries me sometimes, it’s more to do with how much I want to change and challenge myself and how much I want those changes and challenges to reflect who I am and want to become. Not what some constantly fluctuating program of an automated algorithm dictates is the most accomplished version of myself based on arbitrary data and audience approval.”

Dan continues to subtly pick at the hem of his sleeve though by now there isn’t any trace of snow left. “It doesn’t help that I want to do a million things- act on ideas and embrace a new way to live, the way I couldn’t when I was younger because I didn’t have the perspective and experience I do now. I want transparency with myself. I want to look in the mirror years down the road and be able to see _me_. Not some…some freakish facsimile.”

“Ooh, alliterative,” Phil says.

“Yeah, I just realized that.  What I mean is I don’t want to see myself years later as some clown with yoghurt on his face.”

“Shouldn’t the phrase be, ‘egg on your face’?”

“I guess?” Dan scrunches up his face in consideration. “But you know what I mean. I need to have the security of knowing I’m living out my desires according to what’s most fulfilling, according to what makes me realize I’m living according to what feels true and good and this right here- this moment here with you- has so much potential. It feels exactly like what I’m looking for, exactly like how I want to feel minutes, days, weeks- _years_ from now. Moments where I’m genuinely, blissfully happy.”

He falls silent and battles the immediate urge to deflect with a joke or a lengthy explanation that might cast a better light on his sentimental confession without making him look weak or whiny after the fact, though he already knows the only person he’d be trying to impress or convince is himself. It’s an impulsive reaction he nearly gives in to regardless, but he stops after considering who it was making up his audience of one. This wasn’t the psychological minefield of his secondary school where displays of emotion and personality were often castigated by isolation and ridicule. No need for him to worry if he might be considered ‘quaint’ or ‘dramatic’ or any of the sliding scale of worse insults that were reserved for those who dared to express themselves without punches and the sharp ends of school supplies. There was no longer any reason to pretend bravado or downplay his true emotions as an act of self-preservation. This was Phil he was speaking to, a person who didn’t adhere to traditional attitudes of emotional repression and who, despite his slight aversion to bittersweet narratives in moves that relied too heavily on provoking feelings of despair and misery to sell their plots, found satisfaction in expressing himself as openly as he was comfortable with, especially when around Dan. Living together guaranteed certain vulnerabilities would be uncovered over time and the years had only taught them how to accept those moments as something to be embraced not mocked or repressed. Still, the past had a way of asserting itself through reflexive instincts too deeply ingrained like old scar tissue to be easily forgotten, not the least of which had to do with the nature of keeping an online career daily subjected to the brutal opinions of the least discerning denizens of the internet, and it takes Dan a moment to wrangle the frustrated itch building in his chest, compelling him to take back everything he’d just said and smother it under a layer of defensive explanations and unrelated tangents.

It helps that Phil doesn’t ask for an explanation. Nor does he deflect. He merely listens and with a smile and a shrug that’s more nuanced than the casual gesture implies, says, “well, it’s not as if moments like this are going anywhere and neither am I.” He reaches over then and brushes away a thin scrim of ice on Dan’s other sleeve as he says more quietly, “You’re not a parody. Or a facsimile. I’ve told you before- you’re clever and capable and one of the most amazing people I know. You have incredible talents and potential and you’re not wasting any of them, you’re just making use of them the best you can as you’re able to. The same way I did and still do.”

 Phil stomps his feet and shoves his hands in his pockets to warm them, though he tugs a corner of Dan’s sleeve along with him in his right hand. “I’m not always the best at noticing the obvious,” he continues. “And I won’t smother you with help you haven’t asked for, but if you _do_ ask and you tell me what you need to make those moments of happiness stick or to let you be able to breathe and to be, I’ll do it. Whether it’s taking a break to chase down Christmas tree farms in the English countryside or going further abroad on holiday somewhere pleasantly warm and Mediterranean.”

Dan snorts. “What- don’t tell me the snow’s starting to get to you of all people?”

“Well, I mean, it _is_ cold out here and I’m not a frost giant.”

“Just a regular giant.”

“Ha, yeah.” Phil’s smile transitions into a more thoughtful expression. “So what is it then? So I know for the future.”

“So you know what for the future?” Dan frowns.

“What makes you genuinely happy so I have an idea.”

“Oh. You already know most of it.”  
Dan’s thoughts follow his reply by silently adding, _you should know, since you embody most of what makes me happy._  
He continues aloud however to say, “I guess if I could break it down to the most basic parts, happiness for me entails stuffing my face, keeping a good sense of humor, having sex- which, thinking about it, comes down to all the usual stuff associated with floods of dopamine anyway. So maybe not the most original answer, but the one that makes the most sense and the one I most enjoy.”

“When you say, having sex, you mean with me or just in general?”

“Oh, you know. With the exhaustive harem of partners I have hidden around London.”

“Wow. Sounds complicated.” Phil raises his eyebrows, interested to play along. “How do you keep track of them all?”

“They each get a pager like the kind they give you in restaurants to let you know when your table is ready, only this one buzzes when they-” Dan thinks about what he’s about to say next and quickly cuts himself off. “Yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that but it wasn’t good.”

“More like where were those buzzing pagers going,” Phil says with a smirk and Dan automatically reaches over to throw a lightweight punch at his arm.

The wind picks up, finding all the minute nooks and gaps of space between their coats to freeze their skin and the cardinal, caught in the vertex of every cold gust skirting over the treetops, darts a final time between the cascade of snow flurries before disappearing into the woods, in a hurry to find refuge from what its feathers can’t provide adequate insulation from.

“Doesn’t look like it’s going to be stopping anytime soon.” Phil looks up and crinkles his nose when a snowflake lands on the end of it. The wind brushes his fringe back, revealing a clear brow, and this small change in his appearance suddenly gives him a more mature and unconsciously statuesque look offset by the frostbitten blush of pink on his cheekbones and the startling blue of his eyes that once more brings to mind images of winter deities. Once more something within Dan quickens, setting off the same ardent surge of affection from before like a second revelation. It’s sensual and profound in ways that has little to do with physical attraction and everything to do with it at the same time. It ushers in a blanketing warmth with enough influence behind its metaphysical weight to briefly shield him from the next blast of cold air like a heavy coat of down. Its figurative insulation doesn’t last too long however before he’s a wreck of goosebumps and shudders again.

“If you’re done sightseeing I think we should head back,” Dan says around the numbed quiver of his lips. “Even if the heat isn’t working it’ll still be warmer than being out here.”

“Okay. But let me take a picture first.”

 _A selfie you mean_ , Dan thinks and shakes his head as Phil hesitantly shuffles sideways and poses himself in front of the picturesque landscape in the background while angling his phone’s camera in a way Dan already knows won’t be flattering. Oblivious to Dan’s critical moue, Phil takes one photo and then another, minutely adjusting his expression and hair each time with anxious pawing at the inadvertent quiff the wind had given him, desperate to reclaim his fringe. His posture is stiff, more from the effort to make the image in his head match the one he’s trying to capture on the screen and Dan sighs, certain they’re going to be here awhile or freeze in place ala Jack Torrance, with someone finding them weeks later to see Phil holding a phone between his snow encased fingers and Dan staring at him from within a block of ice, looking on in resigned weariness. Then, before true impatience or hypothermia can set in, Dan notices an opportunity in a tiny heap of snow on the retaining wall just in reach of his fingers. He doesn’t even think about it. The idea is blinding; the timing too perfect for him to ignore. He quickly leans over and gathers up a handful of snow, molding it into a perfect ball. Phil meanwhile continues his solo photoshoot, oblivious to Dan’s raised hand in his periphery. The only warning he receives is a single innocent sounding question of, “you taking a selfie?”

Phil raises his head to reply, his finger in the midst of tapping the screen to take another picture, and a streak of white instantly zeroes in like a shooting star. Before he can blink or duck away a frigid snowball explodes on contact with his face.

“ _Dan! You-!_ ”

Phil stumbles back and snow drips from his hair down the collar of his coat. For a second his expression looks thunderous, a vengeful winter deity now gathering considerable force behind his fury, and Dan starts to wonder if maybe he might have gone a tad bit too far when Phil darts down with savage speed and gathers up a heaping mound of snow to fling at the ready bullseye of Dan’s forehead. Spontaneity makes him a crack shot and the snowball zings through the air, finding its mark a second later with a satisfying thudding poof of icy powder.

Dan’s sputters give way to a shrieking gasp but this in turn gives way to an unsteady pronouncement of, “oh shit,” as his feet sidle backwards into a frozen patch of snow and his legs instantly slide towards opposite ends of the compass. He windmills for balance but gravity asserts itself with a vengeance and the world shifts to comprise a view of the sky in reverse as he hurtles backwards towards the ground.

With the same spontaneous alacrity, Phil lurches forward and seizes Dan’s arm before he can fall the rest of the way. In an exerted show of strength he pulls Dan upright again, but his wavering smile of relief flickers and fades when the tug’s momentum only knocks them both off balance with Phil the one in danger of toppling over, this time bringing Dan along for the ride. They make a show of themselves in the abandoned carpark with only the curious onlookers of sparrows around to ogle their fumbling dance over the ice slick, pushing, pulling; slipping and sliding in an improvised choreography heralding disaster. They catch themselves at the last minute however and with much stumbling of feet and exclamatory curses finally come to a stop as they grasp the retaining wall for support.

 _Guess sometimes you just can’t help looking like a couple of clowns no matter what you do_ , Dan thinks wryly as he recovers.

Their breaths puff from their mouths like career smokers getting in a drag on a time limit before the lunch break ended and as they take in their mutual state of disarray, with melting snow making a bird’s nest of mussed splinges and sodden curls in their hair, the image of them both as six foot two walking disasters with bad coordination fresh in their minds, they can’t help cracking up in hysterical amusement at themselves. The sounds of their laughter echoes out over the hills, shattering the muted quiet of snowfall and from somewhere hidden close by in the trees on the side of the road a cardinal makes an angry protest.

“Right. If I wasn’t cold before I definitely am now,” Dan says. “And er…sorry about your selfie by the way.”

“No worries. I think I got a few good ones in.” Phil brushes off the snow from his shoulders, but it quickly accumulates again, not only on his shoulders but also on his head and in the open scoop of his hood. He seems ready to leave the matter there and head back to the warmer security of the van, but Dan isn’t as quick to do the same, positive that no matter how well Phil had managed to capture perhaps one good selfie out of the nine shots taken, he could take a better one.

“Hold on, let me see that.” Dan gestures for Phil to hand over his phone and with only brief hesitation and not a single follow-up question of “why?” he does.

The pictures aren’t bad, but certainly not the best they could be or so Dan decides as he skims through Phil’s gallery, mentally ticking off the flaws of lighting, angle and posture in each one. Those details are minor however in comparison with the subject. Just as he’d thought, Phil is too stiff, overly aware of himself; too conscious of trying to smile and making an impression when he managed to do just that without any effort at all. Dan makes up his mind on the spot to take charge of the situation, spurred on by a surge of confidence and a smaller burst of guilt at having been a contributing obstacle standing in the way of Phil’s attempts to capture a good photo.

“Er…what are you doing?” Phil startles as Dan busies around him, brushing off snow from the lapels of his coat and rearranging his fringe back into a more stylish upswept quiff.

“You wanted a selfie, you might as well let me take a good one for a change,” Dan says, not looking up as he shakes the snow from Phil’s hood and then moves back to prodding a wayward strand of Phil’s hair into place.

Phil doesn’t seem to mind Dan’s preening adjustments, but sniffs in mock offense at his commentary. “Hey, I take good selfies. It’s just difficult to get it right every time and you should talk by the way. You always end up taking about thirty in a row. But…I’m not complaining. The ones you take of me always end up being my favorites. You’ve a good eye for photography. ”

“Thank god at least one of us does,” Dan replies airily, but the praise settles in his chest with the restorative force of a tonic, warmly satisfying, better than any hot sugary drink in a café.

He steps back to observe his handiwork and there it is again, that strangely ethereal reflection from before, statuesque, impish, and merely Phil. Dan hurries to capture this image exactly as it appears before the fretful pull of the wind could mess it up again.

“Stand there. No, no right there.” Dan conducts Phil in front of the snow dipped hills behind him to let them provide a white canvas of contrast against the stark black of his coat and hair. “Right. Now look at me. No, don’t do that family photo Christmas card smile thing. Just look at me. Don’t think of what to do with your face or your hands. Just…look at me.”

Phil’s shoulders lose their flexed tension and his strained smile relaxes into a more natural one, subtle, calmer. His eyes, previously too wide with the strained unconscious effort to look amiable, relax as well. Snow coasts along the bridge of his nose and tickles his eyelashes but he doesn’t move to brush it away. Dan becomes the sole focus of attention. He follows every directing flicker of movement, interested in seeing the outcome of their photographic venture, implicitly trusting that Dan will know what works and what doesn’t. His back straightens, his arms fall loosely at his sides and he lifts his chin without prompting, not even flinching when the wind brushes against the bare space of his forehead though the sensation feels a bit too foreign for comfort. The last time he’d worn a style like this had been his early years in uni, a transformative era where he was just beginning to learn how to connect with people in ways that didn’t threaten his own sense of security and need for uninhibited self-expression, and after he’d found an outlet for that expression in a more appealing image of himself with long hair and a right swept fringe he thought he’d never find a reason to change. Until now.  
He considers maybe change was good. Maybe there were still things about himself which remained in the early stages of discovery so many years later, waiting for him to explore new ideas and new adventures, even if it was as simple as posing with a quiff for a selfie at Dan’s request.

 _This is good_ , he thinks, _this feels…right. Just like Dan said._

His posture relaxes the rest of the way and he looks up past the pinhole of the camera, over the top of the phone at the person holding it and his smile deepens, though this time he’s not thinking at all of how it will look in the picture.

 _There you are_ , Dan thinks.

He ignores the tingling burn of cold at the tips of his fingers and with a steadier hand than he’d thought possible given the minute tremble in his legs, he succeeds in freeze-framing the moment exactly as he’d envisioned. He might have continued to play fashion photographer, meticulously shifting his stance to take a variety of angled photos had Phil not called an abrupt end to the session by shaking his head and rolling his shoulders in a vigorous shudder as if the cold were a tangled sheet he was trying to physically dislodge from his body.

“I think that’s enough,” he says. “There has to be more than a few good ones in the lot by now.”

Dan doesn’t even think of arguing for more time. The brittle numbness traveling through his skin like a spreading fever towards the muscle and bone underneath is all the motivation he needs to give a frigid nod and step in line behind Phil as they race back to the van. It’s not enough however to waylay Phil’s suspenseful curiosity of wondering about the outcome of his selfies and he lags behind to open the picture gallery on his phone. He pulls up short and all lingering thoughts of selfies are wiped from his mind when he notices the discreet reappearance of four strong, white bars in the corner of his screen.

“Hey! I have a signal!”

The news is enough to also stop Dan in his tracks and he nearly falls headlong to the ground again as he reverses direction mid stride and paces back to join Phil in rejoicing over the return of the network signal on their phones.

“Guess we’re either so high up or just in one of those lucky zones with good signal strength,” he says as he peers down at his own phone to check that he too had been visited with the same luck of a service connection. “Not that the birds and sheep out here need it, but either way, this is great! We’ll finally get the directions we need, though I’d rather do that in a place where the feeling can return to my hands and toes.”

They resume their hell-bent race to the van and waste no time in shutting the doors on the strengthening gusts of wind rocking the trees. As expected, even with the engine turned off and the heating system no longer viable even if it was, it’s warmer inside the van than outside it, especially without swirls of ice being flung about by either Phil or Mother Nature. Dan relaxes into his seat and rubs his hands together to circulate feeling back into his fingers, inwardly criticizing himself for leaving his gloves at home.

_If it’s not my wallet or my phone, it’s my gloves. Always something I guess. At least we can finally get back on track towards getting a Christmas tree now. And that strange noise from before is gone as well. Yay for progress._

“Okay, it says here if we get back onto the A243, we can then take an exit onto the M25 and it seems like a fairly straight shot to Orpington from there.” Phil excitedly reads off a result from Google in the backlit glow of his phone’s screen, clearly more excited at the prospect of being able to return to their original objective than checking his selfies again.

“You better memorize those directions in case we lose the connection along the way. You’re my eyes now…as terrifying as that sounds considering how bad your eyesight is,” Dan says as he inserts the key back into the ignition.

“I don’t know. If it’s anything like that game we played about disarming bombs, with me reading the instructions and you interpreting them, we’re both in trouble then.” Phil doesn’t look worried as he says it however. Their brief diversion in the snow has given him a surge of innervated vitality Dan picks up on immediately. They’re both ready to go, confident and excited to be back on their way and fill the remaining hours of the afternoon with their version of mutual happiness and self-fulfillment. So thinking, Dan turns the key to start the ignition and revisit their adventure.

Nothing happens.

_That’s weird…_

Dan turns the key again and again it turns in the slot with an empty click.

Phil, still keeping an eye on his phone in a studious bid to commit each navigational turn to memory, says,” well? Come on, let’s go.”

“Yeah, working on it.”

Thinking perhaps he’d gotten the placement wrong, Dan slots the key out and then carefully inserts it back.

The engine doesn’t give so much as a rattle of a wheeze.

“…Phil?”

“Yeah?”

“I think we might have a small problem.” Dan slowly looks over in a deadpanned Office stare. “I think the battery’s dead.”

“What??” The phone nearly drops from Phil’s hand.

Dan turns the key again for emphasis and they both listen with mounting dread as the engine remains incommunicado.

“If it’s the battery couldn’t we try jump starting it?” Phil offers a suggestion when the silence begins to build to uncomfortable levels and Dan finds it admirable he hasn’t launched into full panic mode yet.

“Sure we could try that,” Dan says. “If we had jumper leads. If there were another car around we could ask for help with jump starting a battery to begin with.”

“Oh. Right….but maybe we can try to flag down a car then?”

“I don’t know about you, but I am not standing in the middle of freezing winds on a deserted road, flashing a bit of an ankle in the hopes that the once in a lifetime spectacle of a passing car in this place will decide we’re not actually six foot hijackers and stop and help us.”

The silence relapses, broken occasionally by the path of the wind bobbing the van to and fro like a boat caught in the wake of a small wave.

Then, Phil remembers something. “When you were signing those papers about the contract and the insurance, wasn’t there a mention about roadside assistance being included if something went wrong?”

“Yes!” Dan rummages about in a flurry of renewed excitement. “There’s probably a number we can call to have someone come out to help us.”

“But…that means…”

Dan pauses with his hand mid swipe of the contract papers and sighs. “Yeah, that means even if we don’t get towed, we’re likely not getting the tree today. Not in the time it would take for a service truck to arrive and jump-start the battery before the place closed, though anything is still possible. And if we do get towed, they’ll likely want to sort out why the car needed to be towed at all, then check availability of vehicles in the price range we selected for a replacement, or whatever other ‘Lucky Dip’ van is up for renting and who knows if we’ll have to sign another lot of papers before we’re allowed back on the road.”

Phil devolves into a pensive, stoic silence. He doesn’t have the same indefatigable energy from before, but to Dan’s relief he doesn’t look angry or petulant about the current turn of events. Instead he appears not resigned but ready to weather whatever might come next, not without some brainstorming to make the process more pleasant to endure, just as he tried to make most things about their life together, even during those times when neither of them was in a mood to try very hard at all. The same dull mood threatens to visit them now, weighing over Dan like a mocking stage whisper from the back of a classroom, goading him to a level of irritation and impatience over the failed disaster of their road trip. But he takes a breath and exhales it in a bid at impromptu meditation before the tenterhooks of every worst case scenario queued up in his thoughts could sink any deeper. He finds the number he needs on the third page of the sheaf of papers Keith had given him and he quickly dials it on his phone. A series of automated prompts and messages guides him through a meticulous directory of selections. He’s asked for a string of information, including his policy number, phone number and the last digits of the credit card registered to the account and Dan is slightly surprised when he isn’t asked for his National Security number and astrological sign next. He inputs everything requested and the system draws up his name, finally allowing him to state the nature of his call as needing assistance for an unresponsive vehicle. A human voice enters the line then and before he can get one word out he’s asked to restate every line of information the system’s A.I had already asked him for. He complies with a sigh as Phil looks on with a sympathetic twitch of a smile. After ten minutes of verifying and re-verifying credentials, the representative finally connects him to a “member of the roadside assistance staff who will meet you personally to diagnose and address the problem.”

After another ten minute wait of mind numbing muzak in his left ear, he startles when it cuts off abruptly and a woman’s voice enters the line.

“Sixt Roadside assistance, this is Susan speaking. I see you’ve got yourself a dead battery?”

“Er, yeah,” Dan replies. “The engine won’t turn over at all.”

“This a new rental or have you had it a while?”

“New rental. As in, we just rented it today. We stopped the car for a bit and when we came back it wouldn’t start.”

A series of keystrokes punctuates the background as Dan talks, presumably as Susan records his report of events word for word, but at the last part the clacking of keys comes to a halt. “Huh, that’s strange.” Susan demurs. “Car batteries don’t usually drain that quickly, unless you left the lights on?”

“No. We just stepped out for about twenty minutes and when we came back that was it. Although…” Dan pauses. “I did hear this high pitched buzz right after turning off the ignition.”

“ _Oh._ ” Susan’s voice sounds more interested now, as if that small detail has set off a grand deduction. “Ooh. That makes more sense.”

“What does?”

“It’s rare but it happens. You’ve likely got a faulty fuel pump relay. Or just the fuel pump. Or just the relay. It’s difficult to tell until it’s in the shop and you’ve either replaced one or the other or both. They’re a right bitch to deal with for that reason. Can never be sure what you’re dealing with. Usually, the fuel pump stops running as soon as the key switches the ignition off, same as any open program on a computer closes when you shut the system down, but if the message gets screwed up in the relay terminal- think of it as a fuse box what supplies current to a number of components in the car- then the fuel pump keeps running until it drains the battery like a vampire having a field day in a blood bank. That buzzing sound you heard? That was the fuel pump still running like mad while the van was off. Usually the engine will stall first to give you a clue something’s wrong, but as this is a first time rental you wouldn’t have known until you had it a couple of days and if it drained without stalling first then it’s likely the problem started long before the vehicle was turned over to you.”

“So there’s no way to jumpstart it then,” Dan asks, already sure he knows the answer.

“I could do that, but it’ll go dead again within minutes of removing the leads. You’d have to be connected to another car’s battery to get anywhere and then you’d both end up needing a tow.”

“Great. So I guess the final verdict is tow then?”

“Looks like it. Shouldn’t take me too long to get out there. You called just in time before the snow picked up. On the news it says Surrey’s looking to get a heavy band of snowfall by the early evening. Makes it harder for our trucks to get around. Not that car trouble is ever lucky, but it’s a good thing you called now.”

Susan asks for their location and Dan tells her, inwardly grateful they’d happened across the remote little carpark with its ancient map and strong network service signal. Without it, had the engine stalled before they could make it to the turn off or the carpark, Dan imagines he and Phil might have actually had to live out his previous daydream of becoming remote sheep herders. Dan exchanges a few more items of information and after a final note of assurance from Susan promising she’d arrive in forty five minutes or less Dan hangs up and lets his head fall with a thud against the seat’s headrest. Without a word, Phil reaches into his stuffed backpack and resurfaces with a packet of marshmallows which he rips into right away and offers to Dan.

“Did you pack the entire kitchen in there or just every bag of sweets we had in the cupboard?” Dan plucks a marshmallow from the bag with a raised eyebrow, but his expression soon eases into one of placid contentment as the soft lump of sugar melts on his tongue. Phil doesn’t waste any time following along and savors one for himself. It’s not even halfway down his throat before he pops another one in his mouth.

“Like I said, when going on a road trip I thought it’d be good to take along a few essentials, so naturally marshmallows had to be on the list.” Phil manages by some miracle to be audible despite his left cheek stuffed to capacity like a hamster with now two marshmallows at once. “I even brought a blanket.”

Dan nearly inhales the half dissolved marshmallow down his windpipe when Phil reaches into his backpack and with a colorful flourish like a magician’s scarf trick he pulls out a thin but sizeable galaxy printed blanket.

“What- you-” Dan gawps.

“I know, I know, but considering the circumstances it turned out to be a good idea after all. It’s not the warmest, but it’s big enough to cover us both.” Phil stretches the blanket out end to end in his hands and makes a quick reassessment. “Well, just barely, but at least we don’t have to freeze until the tow truck arrives.”

“Talk about overkill. Did you pack a Ribena in there too?” Dan mutters, not expecting an answer, but Phil cheerfully replies, “I tried, but with everything else I packed the bottle wouldn’t fit.”

With that, Dan gives up pondering the reasoning behind Phil’s efforts to turn his backpack into a Tardis and refocuses on grabbing a section of the blanket to shield himself with against the small draft seeping back between the seams of the windows, slowly filling the van with a vaporous chill. They don’t argue or complain about having to share, nor do they protest when they have to huddle closer together to keep from stretching the blanket past the point of providing any adequate warmth. They simply fall together comfortably, unselfconsciously, until they’re back to being shoulder to shoulder with only the awkward bulk of the centre console separating them.

“Guess there’s nothing left to do but hibernate and wait,” Dan says.

“You know,” Phil says, the words half garbled around the next marshmallow he pops into his mouth. “We could play a game to pass the time. Maybe another round of I Spy?”

“Not very challenging when the only thing to spy in all directions is snow.”

“There’s other things. For example, things beginning with ‘D’.”

“I don’t know where your ‘little eyes’ are spying or how low, but they better stop,” Dan says.

Phil laughs. “You have to make everything sexual.”

“No, no, no, that’s my line.” Dan draws himself up in an exaggeratedly defensive posture. “You might not be as candid about it as me, but you’re just as raunchy when you want to be or did I miss something earlier with that buzzing pagers comment?”

“Fine, fine. But you still haven’t given me an answer.”

“About what?”

“I spy with my little eye something beginning with D.”

Dan sighs and without any other recourse for diversion other than toying with the internet connection on their phones and running the risk of draining the battery just like the van, leaving them completely stranded without an outside connection should something else go wrong, he finally gives in. “Right. Is the answer, Dan?”

“Nope.”

“Door?”

“Nope.”

“Dog?”

“No- wait. Where?”

“Nowhere,” Dan says with a shrug. “Just wished I could see one right now to distract myself from the urge of running outside screaming for having to play this game all over again.”

“Because you know you’re not very good at it?”

“Excuse me.” Dan halts in the middle of selecting another marshmallow and Phil has an idea if Dan were a cat his hackles would be raised in bristling offense. “First of all, I’m not competitive-”

Phil makes a noise under his breath but masks it quickly with a harsh cough.

“I am _not_ competitive, but there’s nothing challenging or strategic about playing I Spy. It’s based on random chance and environmental clues that may or may not lead to the answer.”

“Guess you’re pretty bad at picking up on the clues then.”

Alright look-” Dan gives a quick, frustrated tug at his hair and regains his composure. “Something beginning with D. Dashboard.”

“Not even close.”

“Dust. Dirt. Daylight. Drainage ditch.”

Phil shakes his head at each answer, giving an enigmatic vulpine grin.

“My deep, dark dovetailing descent towards despair.”

“Delightfully dramatic, but no,” Phil says.

“MY DICK.” Dan blurts out and throws up his arms in defeat.

“I already said no. Give up then?”

When Dan doesn’t immediately reply, Phil cheerfully announces, “not your dick, your dimple.”

He reaches over as if to demonstrate the clue Dan had missed literally right in front of his face, so close in fact as to be a physical part of it, and gently pokes the now barely visible impression indenting the corner of Dan’s mouth. When there’s still no response, Phil does it again, trying to rile up a smile in the face of the stoic deadpanned stare Dan gives him instead. The silence builds and Phil senses the static charge of tension building up to a reaction he anticipates seconds before it happens but even then he barely manages to pull back his hand in time before Dan swivels his head and snaps at Phil’s fingers, albeit with a ghost of a smile on his face.

 “Oh see, there it is.” Phil makes as if to poke the dimple again and Dan once more nips the air with an audible clack of teeth in warning for him to not even think about it. Phil however does think about it and decides to draw in closer despite the present danger of being mauled for his trouble.

“I spy something else,” he murmurs.

“Is it the surgeon you’re going to need to reattach your finger if you don’t stop?”

“Something better, something beginning with…” Instead of ending his sentence with the letter he’s looking for, Phil trails off and lets the slow kiss he presses to Dan’s mouth speak for itself.  
It’s half an apology for having teased Dan so relentlessly and half a spur of the moment whim brought on by a powerful surge of sudden affection without any real cause other than the usual stimuli of appreciation and attraction catalyzed by Dan’s presence. He doesn’t attach any introspective qualifiers to the action, he merely lets the tide of his instincts pull him along, deepening the kiss when Dan instantly responds in kind with an arching yearning curve of his back. They sway towards each other without thought, ignoring the wedged barrier of the console between them, fixated only on the keen desire to forget the instigating grip of the cold and the layer of snow coating the windows in an opaque white glaze.

Under the blanket Phil’s right hand intertwines with Dan’s left, palm to palm, in in a tethered clasp so tight the steady beat of their pulse conveys itself up through each other’s arm, blending together like opposing wavelengths finding a rare point of synchronous harmony, until it’s difficult for even them to determine which pulse is whose. But the singular phenomenon of coinciding biorhythms is the furthest thought from their minds. Not when the reactive tingle of nerves fueling the quiet thud of their hearts in the wake of a new, more sensual and entertaining game to play is much more interesting. Dan catches on to the gist of it instantly. The rules no longer entail trying to find the names of things through environmental cues and random turns of chance, instead they’re meant to read each other’s physical cues in an attempt to guess what favorite quirks of physical contact spark the best reaction. ‘I Spy’ in short order takes on a different iteration based on the roving glide of fingertips and the searching exchange of a kiss, where each accompanying right answer of quickened breaths and approving hums seems more rewarding than playing a glorified round of word finder.

As Phil leans in again with another roving offer of a kiss, Dan bites down on his lower lip, but with none of the force he’d shown before. It’s a tender pressure without any sting of pain behind it, yet it still manages to draw a small gasp from Phil’s mouth though it’s nothing new to him, reflective as it is of the confluence of opposing and complementary energies making up Dan’s personality with an edge of a bite at his core like an undercurrent of something sinuously dark and enigmatic yet warm and personable. When those traits manifested in more stated forms of affection beyond the formal niceties of a casual embrace, Dan became a blend of sensations, all sharp and soft in equal measure. As if in reminder of this, careful fingertips find their way under the coat sleeve of Phil’s left arm and brush the pulse point of his wrist up to the heel of his palm. They leisurely retrace this path with a feathery touch, up and down; back and forth, as if conducting a rare form of sensual palmistry. Of all the parts of his body Phil might have called erogenous, he’d never considered the pulse point of his wrists to be one as well, but the minute shivers of sensitivity radiating up his arm say otherwise.

He wants to move closer, to pull Dan towards him, let their little game proceed to a different level of enjoyment better enhanced by total proximity, but it’s awkward to find any grace of movement under the restrictive bundle of their jumpers, coats and trousers, hampered further by the draping weight of the blanket on top of them. He glances at the backseat with its tempting offer of evenly spaced legroom, but though it’s a quick afterthought of an idea he doesn’t openly suggest, Dan follows the direction of his gaze, interprets exactly what Phil’s thinking about and shakes his head.

“I am not having sex in the back of a rental van that smells like burnt plastic and whatever else the previous drivers stored back there. Or _did_ back there,” Dan says the last part with a lurid kind of emphasis and Phil wrinkles his nose.

“Way to kill the mood.”

“I never said stop,” Dan mutters, brushing Phil’s nose with his own as he tries to reclaim the kiss he’d broken. “I just don’t like the idea of us lying on top of whatever layer of dirt and other unmentionables might be lurking in the upholstery back there.”

“As opposed to whatever unmentionables might be lurking in the seats we’re in right now you mean?” Phil launches a half-hearted retort despite being a bit more on edge at the thought of what his bum might currently be sitting on top of, but the series of slow, lush kisses Dan presses to his mouth quickly diverts his attention. The sound of his coat zipper ticking open inch by inch further distracts him and by the time a warm hand rucks up the hem of his jumper to trace the swell of his hip in the same feathery circuit of pressure sending pleasant waves of sensation up his spine, all thoughts of rental van microbes disappear completely. With his coat open and his jumper halfway up his belly, he’d complain of being cold but Dan radiates heat like an oven. His touch has the effect of a concentrated hot pack, somehow more insulating and soothing than both a coat and blanket combined. Years ago, when they’d only just met, Phil remembers many occasions of worrying and asking Dan if he had a fever only to discover that was just the way he was, always somewhere on the verge of a thermal reaction. He’s surprised Dan’s presence alone isn’t enough to act like a human defroster to melt the snow now completely shrouding the van’s windows in tightly packed mounds of ice.

A few streams of grey daylight manage to seep through, giving each pane of glass an unearthly glow as if they were surrounded by a set of light boxes. It’s unintentionally picturesque or so Phil thinks as he leans back to take in the state of Dan’s kiss-bitten lips and half lidded eyes heavy with languor and need. But he soon finds himself wondering over the coronal outline etched around Dan’s shoulders courtesy of the backlit ambience of the window behind him. It reminds Phil of the spiritual auras an old school friend had once claimed to be able to see. The colors and meanings apparently varied, but he’d learned in general blue denoted calm, green denoted balance and white denoted guidance while the silver white nimbus clinging to Dan, though merely a result of external lighting rather than a vision from Phil’s third eye, was meant to signify sensitivity and spiritual awakening. Phil isn’t sure if there’s any kind of spiritual awakening happening right now, more than there’s something else more carnal stirring between them in the form of a head dizzying rush of molten pleasure helped along by the two wandering hands guiding themselves under his jumper and up his chest.

Dan’s fingertips leave behind contrails of warmth like separate auras Phil imagines would be the red gold color of a campfire blaze. Phil squirms under the touch even as he arches into it with a luxuriating sigh. It’s not uncomfortable, but the rising waves of sensitivity tickling over his ribs and through his abdomen is almost too much for him to endure at once. Every inch of his skin, from his scalp to his toes, has become one tingling mass of an erogenous zone, one Dan knows how to explore and tease all too well. The interior of the van soon contracts to points of vivid color and heat to create a microcosm of a universe defined by the kiss seizing Phil’s mouth and the hands kneading back down his chest towards the dip of his bellybutton. The belt securing the waistband of his trousers prevents any further southward navigation, but it’s not a great concern to either of them. There’s enough building friction between them to compensate for direct touch, though Phil wonders how much longer he’ll be satisfied with indirect stimulation given the small flare of impatience he feels as his knee hits the centre console, the last real barrier dividing them, compelling him to tug Dan closer as if trying to subsume him.

“A bit less rough, maybe? It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” Dan laughs. “You’re acting like you’re fighting to get at the last marshmallow in the bag.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not that sweet.”

“True, but that’s never stopped you from treating me as if I was. Bad enough you’re partly to blame for my chapped lips. Greedy little shit,” Dan murmurs the last part against Phil’s cheek like an endearment and Phil groans, half in exasperation, half from the overwhelming need to move; to evenly displace the pressure building along his thighs and chest before he proved Dan’s point by clambering over the console in a graceless rush of limbs to press him against the window.

In the end, they resolve their simmering desperation by meeting in the middle with the same idea of lowering the backrest of their seats to give a wider and easier range of motion without committing themselves to the questionable terrain of the backseat. Phil however soon finds this new position difficult to manage as well and he’s halfway to thinking, ‘to hell with it’ while throwing one leg over the console to join Dan in his seat, avaricious reputation be damned, when the heel of his trainer skids across the steering wheel and accidentally blasts the horn. The noise is almost offensively loud, startling them both from the hushed mood of the moment with a heart pounding jump. Dan jerks back with a teeth rattling knock of his head against the window and Phil barely has time to ask if he’s alright when they hear a voice call from outside.

“Hullo! Someone in there?”

They freeze and stare at each other like a pair of wide-eyed deer in headlights. The heavy tread of footsteps crunches in the snow, growing closer, and it’s only when the sound is mere feet away from the driver’s side door that they leap into action to restore a semblance of decorum to their hedgehog pile of rumpled clothing. The packet of marshmallows goes flying from its precarious placement on the dashboard, spilling flurries of sweets everywhere as they hurriedly zip up their coats, smooth out the blanket and rearrange their legs back into place before the stranger peered in through Dan’s window to see them in their current state of undress.

They barely manage to straighten their seats into their original vertical positions, so quickly Phil accidentally smacks himself in the face with the head rest, when a silhouette steps into view seconds later and taps on the glass. “Hullo?”

With his heart pulsing out a distressed Morse code in his throat, Dan presses the button to roll the window down, then on remembering that with the battery dead the window won’t budge, he tentatively opens the door and narrowly misses getting pelted by the small avalanche of accumulated snow that falls from above. When the icy cascade stops, Dan peers out to see an old man with a whiskery froth of a beard and a fleece collared, red checkered coat peering back.

At first glance, the resemblance to a certain ‘jolly old elf’ is so uncanny it catches Dan off guard and he automatically thinks in a daze, _Santa??,_ but quickly retracts that idea, less from realizing that it was impossible and more from the mortifying image he gets of the actual Santa Claus stumbling across his and Phil’s impromptu make out session in the middle of an abandoned carpark on the side of the road.

“You boys need any help?” Even the man’s voice, with its cheerful sonorous quality, is reminiscent of old St. Nick, further enhancing Dan’s discomfort. “I was driving by when I saw your van here and thought it was odd no one was around. We don’t usually have tourists come by this way until the spring and summer months. Then I heard the horn blast and thought I’d make sure everything was alright.”

Dan stares a second longer than normal, squinting at the man’s face, until Phil quietly nudges his arm and he startles back to himself. “Er, no, sorry. We’re fine. I mean, our battery died so not exactly fine, but we’re waiting for a tow.”

“I thought as much,” the man says with a nod. “Hope that tow arrives soon. On the telly, they’re saying it’s shaping up to be an awful night with snow blocking roads and winds strong enough to break telephone cables apparently.”

 “Shit, really?” Dan furrows his brow with concern, but at the sharp reproving look the man gives him after hearing the expletive he’d blurted out, Dan quickly apologizes though he’s not sure why.

 _He’s not Santa. He’s not Santa_ , Dan thinks, but the visual effect is too powerful for his subconscious to completely agree.

“Snowstorms aside, looks like this area’s due to be hit with a good cold front from the North, enough I’d say to give the entire region a white Christmas.”

Phil perks up at this and leans over Dan’s shoulder, fairly thrumming with excitement. “That’s incredible! I was hoping for one, but usually it doesn’t always work out that way.”

“Well, I’ve found things rarely work out exactly the way we want, be it with the weather, cars or life,” the man says thoughtfully. “One moment you’re pootling along, following a path you think you’ve plotted just so to perfection and the next you find yourself surrounded by circumstances far different than originally intended. I should know- Back in the day, I started out as a detective sergeant looking to join the Met’s CID, but later found out that wasn’t for me. Not with their history being what it was back then and me realizing I’d rather be out here, minding the sheep and my own business, though I suppose I’m not doing a good job of that at the moment, eh?”

The image of a new BBC drama starring Santa Claus as an aspiring constable chasing after hardened criminals while fighting internal corruption within his unit’s ranks takes center stage in Dan’s thoughts, rendering him momentarily goggle-eyed and speechless as Phil steps in to pick up the thread of conversation in his stead.

“It’s fine. Thanks for stopping to check on us. That was nice of you.”

“No worries. Had to make sure you didn’t need any help, though, if I’m honest,” the old man starts to say with a rumbling laugh, “it was partly due to my training in the force kicking in, wanting to also make sure you weren’t a pair of characters up to no good. A month ago, we had a rash of incidents in town involving two purse grabbing hijackers who were never caught.”

 _Not at all officer Claus, we’re just two young men grabbing a chance to snog in a broken down rental car we now wish someone would hijack from us_ , Dan thinks wryly.

“Where were you headed if you don’t mind me asking?” The old man glances casually around the interior of the van, looking for all the world like the uniformed official he used to be, clearly still wary of the two newcomers in his neighborhood.

“Christmas tree farm in Bromley,” Dan says, prompted by both the man’s demeanor and appearance to give a quick answer. “Our GPS broke and we took a wrong turn until...well…” He makes an empty gesture with his hands to imply the gap of unfortunate events prefacing their unintended campsite in the car park and the man nods again in understanding.

“I know that farm,” he says. “Nice little place to pick a tree from, much better than buying those precut ones they have around the city. And they last longer too. Sorry it didn’t work out today.”  
He pauses in brief consideration of something before continuing. “I’m actually going round to visit a friend, but I’ll be back this way later on before it gets any worse out here, so if things aren’t sorted out with the tow truck by that time you’re both welcome to hitch a ride into town with me.”

“Oh, thanks, much appreciated!” Phil smiles, genuinely pleased at the offer while Dan continues to imagine a North Pole cadet force made of surly workshop elves.

“In the meantime, I’ll leave you lads to it then. Sure you both have better ways of passing the time than talking to an old man.” The knowing smile he gives derails every thought in Dan’s head in a hurry and he pales at the idea of a veteran detective sergeant reading all the minute telltale signs of their appearance to know exactly what they’d been getting up to moments before he’d happened on them.

With a red flush spreading across their faces they exchange hasty goodbyes and Dan closes the car door, watching through the now cleared window as the old man tromps back through the snow to his seasonally appropriate bright red pickup truck parked alongside the verge. As he starts the engine and drives off, the set of silver bells attached under the rear bumper chime merrily in time with the swaying motion of the axle. Dan follows the vivid splash of color through the white capped trees until it disappears around a bend in the road, but even then he can still hear the sound of both the engine and the bells fading into the distance.

“Sleigh bells ring are you listening,” Dan mutters, half to himself. “I think we were just visited by Santa or his cousin, either way I don’t think I’ll be sleeping well tonight.”

“Sure, it was a bit embarrassing, but I’m not worried. If anyone’s on the naughty list it’s definitely you.” Phil settles back in his seat with a confident smirk.

“Says the guy who was ready to grind with me in the back of a van that doesn’t belong to us.”

“A small lapse in judgement.” Phil coughs. “Won’t happen again.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts when we get home.”

His words carry the suggestive weight of a promise that they would soon pick up right where they had left off, this time in the comfort of a bed which belonged to them within the discreet confines of their flat where they could be as unfettered and ‘naughty’ as they pleased with each other. Phil imagines the exact scenario in a flash of a waking daydream and his cheeks, still glowing with a faint blush after their parting conversation, become the exact color of the old man’s pickup truck.

“I don’t want to know what you’re thinking about do I,” Dan asks, amused.

“I don’t know, do you?”  
Despite his reticence, Phil can’t help feeling keyed up with a leftover thrill of adrenaline and sensual warmth which hasn’t entirely dispersed. It’s colder in the van than it was before, with most of the insulated heat having escaped through the open door during their talk with the old man, but Phil imagines it might not be very hard to produce a little heat of their own through a regrouped effort of one on one kinetic friction.

“God, I’ve turned you into a thirsty hedonist.” Dan sounds pleased as he says it however, more than a little glad at the idea of being the instigating source of Phil’s pleasure. He leans forward to meet for another silken glide of a kiss and finds himself not at all concerned with either the idea of being stranded or being caught, though both scenarios came with their own particular set of problems.

 _But they’re not problems I have the time or patience to give a damn about right now_ , he thinks. _Not when this moment feels so right, so good…the kind of moment bigger than my worst fears, the kind of moment where I can find myself, again and again and again. Because it’s him. Because it’s us._

He punctuates his conviction with a set of searing, studious kisses, like a hummingbird slowly darting back and forth towards a flower, lingering long enough each time to steal both their breaths away. He’s not sure if he means to follow through and pick up where they left off, not when he was still recovering from their encounter with Santa Claus’ twin, but just before he has a chance to deliberate on the pros and cons of throwing caution to the wind and straddling Phil in his seat, half-drunk on dregs of dopamine, unrelated bliss and a fierce need to do something constructive with the simmering flood of affection and trust he wants to express in ways more profound and physical than words can convey, the sound of an approaching vehicle interrupts his thoughts.

“Did he decide to come back?” Phil pulls away and looks out towards the road, but it doesn’t take long for them both to realize the large, dark recovery truck coming into view isn’t the old man.

“People really have great timing around here,” Dan says dryly.

“Oh? Thought you’d be relieved to finally be able to get out here.”

“I am. I just…” Dan shrugs. “Things didn’t exactly go to plan today, but not everything about the situation was terrible in hindsight. Especially not the last few minutes...”  
He reaches over, mindful of the recovery truck slowing down as it approaches the carpark and he can’t help briskly combing Phil’s hair back into the half quiff it’s still trying to escape from, as if every strand were launching its own protest irrespective of Phil’s own feelings on the matter and was trying through an instinctive pull of muscle memory to reclaim its old familiar state of a fringe.

“You look really good like that, you know,” Dan murmurs. “You should try giving it a go for a bit; see how well you like it.”

“You think so? It’s kind of a drastic change, isn’t it?” Phil glances at himself in the rearview mirror, angling his face left and right for a better profile view.

 “I dunno. Change isn’t so bad. New flat, new tour, new chapter in our lives-”

“New hairstyles.” Phil smiles and gently tugs a curled lock of Dan’s hair, entertained by watching it bounce back like a spring when he lets go. “If you like it that much and you think it suits me, then maybe I _will_ give it a go.”

“It definitely suits you.” Dan reflexively bites his lower lip which suddenly feels dry and rough as he admires this new version of Phil, similar in all ways except for his hair, and he finds it funny how such a simple change of one small detail could be so impactful, to give Phil a newfound powerful allure somehow both mature and youthful; ethereal and casual in equal measure.

“Wow, if it’s that good, maybe I should have tried it out sooner,” Phil says finally to break the silence of Dan’s long, silent stare. “Who’s the thirsty hedonist now?”

Dan swats at Phil’s shoulder, but he ducks away, grinning delightedly at the idea he could have such a profound libidinous effect and as Dan leans over to try again for a better hit another polite knock at the window interrupts them.

“Hi, it’s Susan from Sixt roadside? You’re the ones what called for a tow, yes?” A woman dressed in a dark green parka with russet hair tied back in a circlet of a braid around her head waves at them in greeting. In her other hand she holds up a badge verifying her identity. “Hope the wait wasn’t too bad. I had another call on my sheet to respond to before yours.”

Dan quickly extricates himself from the blanket again and opens the door. “No, it’s alright.”

“Yeah, we were busy admiring the scenery, playing I Spy and satisfying our thirst,” Phil calls out, still grinning from ear to ear and Susan watches on, mystified, as Dan whirls around to deliver a well-timed punch to Phil’s arm.

 

❧ ❧ ❧

 

Having exhausted its repertoire of tricks for the day, life offers no other unexpected surprises and small disasters to interrupt their trip back home. The cab of the truck is small, but the three of them are able to sit alongside each other without feeling cramped and even if it had been, Dan is too thankful at the idea of not being stranded in the middle of Surrey in a snowstorm to care about such things as meager legroom. Phil helps the atmosphere along with his chatty and cheerful mood, making comfortable conversation with Susan as she drives, touching on sundry topics like sheep, cars, cryptograms and even more incongruously, pho. The defunct van jostles along behind the tow truck with a creaking racket of suspension coils and thudding shocks over every bump in the road, echoing into the cab loud enough to overpower the tinny voice of the newscast on the radio, but Phil continues his banter with Susan undeterred by the noise. His energy is bright and unwavering, spurred on, Dan supposes, by a residual sugar high of marshmallows and the warm afterglow of their mutual physical displays of affection. For his part, Dan placidly listens along without comment, looking out the window at another hawk wheeling high above the snow and wind.

This time he’s unaffected by sudden bursts of introspection or longwinded metaphors linking him to the bird coasting far above his head. They exist as they are, separate entities inhabiting the same space and time, going about the business of their existence one moment after the other, living out whatever truths best suited their wellbeing, with one of them more bound by the laws of nature and its own primal instincts than the other.

 _To just be_ , Dan thinks. _Without the strain of uncomfortable demands or unwanted obligations, where I can exist without overcomplicating or deflecting. That’s how I feel right now- content to just sit back, enjoy the ride and just be, exactly as I am in this very moment._

This mood lasts even after arriving back at the Sixt rental office to once again face Keith’s dour expression. He listens to their plight with visible disinterest and after tapping his pen against the desk in a rhythmic counterpoint to his irritation, explains in an insouciant monotone that their ‘so called unforeseen breakdown’ will result in their liability for all costs associated with repairs not covered by the terms of the insurance they had bought. Dan stares at him for a long time, quietly reserved, and Phil does the same next to him, both of them immediately sensing that in the way of shakedowns and cheap cons this was a prime example. For the first time since their encounter, Keith hesitates, suddenly less sure of himself than he’d been a second ago. His veneer of haughty assurance breaks completely when Susan steps in with an icy edge of authority, threatening to speak with the company director about unfair business practices and going on to advocate the right of a customer to press legal charges should they be forced to pay damages they couldn’t reasonably be at fault for.

“In the event they do file a suit, I’ll personally testify on behalf of it,” she says. “I’ll even provide evidence to prove the van was faulty long before it was rented out to them, to the full knowledge of one particular employee by the name of Keith who should have been responsible for ordering and documenting the inspection of the vehicle in accordance with company safety guidelines.”

Keith glances between the three of them and, after reading the guaranteed loss of his position and all favorable references for any future applications in the severe weight of their gaze, all but cowers behind his computer terminal as he quickly and quietly asks for Dan’s credit card to reimburse him the deposit along with all other accompanying charges for their rental.

Susan goes further to demand he call a cab as compensation for his oversight and Keith readily complies without comment or complaint. It arrives quickly despite the snow falling with increased enthusiasm in the darkening light of another fast fading winter afternoon and Susan meets them at the kerb to say goodbye while handing them a few papers about her observations and final conclusions about the van’s malfunctioning fuel pump before leaving.

“Thought you’d might like to keep these copies as insurance just in case Keith decides to get any ideas after you leave,” she says with a wink. “He can be a right hardass at times when he thinks he can get one over easily on a customer, but I try to keep him in line when I can though I’m just the company mechanic.”

“Would you have really spoken to the director about him,” Dan asks and Susan immediately scoffs.

“Fuck no. I know cars, not big wig executives. If I had those kinds of connections I’d have my own chain of repair shops where I didn’t have to throw around other people’s names to get a job done right the first time. My own name would be enough.”

“I don’t know. I think you’re more than capable at making that happen with or without connections,” Phil says. “You helped us loads back there. I think Keith was more intimidated by you than any mention of the company director, honestly.”

Susan laughs. “I do what I can to terrorize the populace into behaving. But you’re right, maybe it’s time I allowed myself a chance to realize my own goals, change it up a bit to where I’m not filling in the blanks for someone else’s life I’m not happy with. Live my truth and all that.”

Dan agrees with the sincerity of personal experience and he exchanges a glance with her which she returns with a communal nod of recognition, the kind of unspoken bond shared between kindred spirits who understand each other without further explanations needed. They all go their separate ways soon after, falling back into the rhythm of their private lives with the echo of the previous hours events filling their thoughts with a vague sense of serenity and incentive. Phil tugs his crammed backpack into the taxi after Dan and once situated he opens it, rummaging around the blanket’s rumpled folds to produce another packet of marshmallows to share despite Dan’s forbearing roll of his eyes. Through a mouthful of chewy sugar and casual conversation, the taxi conducts them home without incident past a familiar tangle of congested streets filled with slush and honking cars that are no longer their problem to deal with. When they finally make it to the front entrance of their building, they rush out of the taxi into the warm inviting space of the lobby; up the elevator and down the hall to their front door. As soon as Dan inserts the key to open it, after Phil fumbles and fails three times with frozen fingers to open it himself, they tumble inside, tired but grateful to be home.

Neither of them considers the lurking threat of beetles in the bathtub as they each wait for the other to finish showering in order to enjoy thawing out the chill still clinging to their bones under a warm pulsing jet of water. Phil swaps his contacts for glasses and after a quick no frills takeaway dinner (“Indian this time,” Dan suggests) they decide to turn in despite it still being earlier in the evening than they usually would. The day’s events, though not as harrowing as they’d originally feared, has taken its toll. With a series of small yawns and shuffling drags of tired feet, they turn out the lights and finally sit together side by side under the moon mirror above Dan’s bed with his monochrome duvet comfortably pulled up to their waists as they sit in companionable silence browsing on their laptops. They nudge each other occasionally to show off a funny picture or video they’d stumbled across, later laughing over the waterfall of caps locked enthusiasm that storms Phil’s twitter replies when he chooses one selfie out of the set Dan had taken earlier to share online, but then Phil checks the unread messages in his email and he straightens up in a burst of speed that jostles the bed frame against the wall and causes his glasses to slip to the end of his nose while elbowing Dan with such fervor he ends up nearly being knocked to the floor.

“Jesus, what the absolute fu-?”

“Dan! It’s that Christmas tree delivery place! You know- the one with kilt guy?”

“Are they offering to pay for the pain meds I’ll need for this black and blue I’m going to have on my ribs tomorrow?”

“No, oh sorry-” Phil winces momentarily as he realizes, but quickly skims over his unintentional assault of Dan’s ribcage and continues in the same giddy tone. “They sent me a message saying they found a way to reschedule our delivery for this week if we’re still interested.”

“I am if you are,” Dan says, absentmindedly rubbing his side. “Though, I still have that YouTube event to go to, so you’d likely be alone again to meet kilt guy.”

“Between everything else that’s happened this week, I think a delivery man in a kilt is something I can handle.”

“Wow, that quiff has really made you a changed man. What’s next? Ripped jeans? Leather jackets? Cannabis time lapses on your Instagram explore page?”

Phil laughs. “Right up there with pictures of Scottish men in kilts and ripped divers on _your_ Instagram explore page.”

“I already told you I’m into fitness, alright?” Dan gives an irritated side eyed glance.

“You’re into fitness or just Tom Daley?”

Dan remains stubbornly tightlipped, staring down at his laptop screen until he relents and mutters, “I can be into both.”

Sensing he’s walking the fine line of truly winding Dan up and losing the lighthearted mood he’d meant to set with his comment, Phil changes the subject back to that of Christmas trees and their road trip adventure. “I guess things weren’t a complete loss today. We got the money back we paid for the rental, saw a flock of sheep-”

“ _Harassed_ a flock of sheep,” Dan corrects him.

“Admired the Surrey Hills in the snow, realized we’d be terrible in an actual camping scenario anywhere further than ten miles from the nearest town if something went wrong and-”

“And Santa Claus nearly discovered us getting it on in a carpark.” Dan interrupts again with a satisfied looking smile on his face. “Yeah, pretty eventful day actually.”

“Your bronchitis sounds better too.”

“It does. Huh. Could be the warm shower I just took helping to alleviate it a bit.”

“Or me,” Phil adds with a coy tone. “You know, I once read an article that said kissing can help relieve cramps and headaches. Maybe there’s something about bronchitis too.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that or everybody with a migraine would be busy smacking lips instead of waiting in a doctor’s office for a prescription. But if you want to take the credit I won’t stop you, I’m just not going to agree with you.”

“Maybe I could persuade you with a totally scientific medical study to prove my hypothesis?” Phil leans in over Dan’s laptop, inching closer and closer as Dan tries to ignore him with a pokerfaced expression, his finger continuing to idly scroll down the screen, but it’s difficult to completely ignore the tickling glance of Phil’s hair against his cheek or the fragrant whiff of the shower gel clinging to Phil’s skin and a stirring sense of curiosity and irrepressible affection ultimately causes him to turn his head a fraction of an inch to the side. Phil pounces on the opportunity to assert his experimental study and slowly crowds Dan up against the wall at their backs, his hands finding the smooth curves of Dan’s hips and the pliant solidity of his chest in an echo of the same path Dan’s hands had traced on his own chest hours before.

They fall to it naturally, unthinkingly, kissing, caressing and sinuously winding together, legs draped over each other the way they couldn’t in the van, lost to the small noises and textural sensations of each other’s bodies as arousal kindles an ember of heat at the base of their spines. The laptop falls from Dan’s grip and ends up askew on its side to join the equally capsized twin of Phil’s own laptop on the bed.  There’s a definite sexual charge in the air, but the act itself never enters the picture. They’re too exhausted to go any further, too content to let the weight of their bodies lay against each other without any need to spark the ember of sensual heat into something more physically involved than indolent kisses and roaming hands. Better to just enjoy this moment as it is, Dan thinks abstractly. To enjoy this moment as they both are, two young men who have come so far together and who have so much further to go, enjoying the adventure of their lives moment to moment as best they can while enjoying each other in the best ways they know how. It’s not a concrete plan or a hardline rule, given Dan’s recent subtle lessons in how plans and rules had a tendency to be broken over time anyway, but when it came to a guiding beacon, something allowing them the flexibility to change and heal and grow at their own pace, to live their truths as they pleased, it was a good start. Tomorrow perhaps they would finalize plans for set designs, email venues for availability, call Martyn to inquire about new merch designs and if things went very well, they might later venture out to the café Dan had mentioned to sample its boisson noir drink with their wallets ready in hand. In the following days, if circumstances allowed, he would deliver a talk onstage, Phil would receive the delivery of their tree, London would be visited with more layers of snow and soon, before they knew it, Christmas would be upon them, followed by the New Year and all its fresh promises of changes, setbacks, triumphs and difficulties, all to be handled as they presented themselves.

 _Who we are together helps who we are apart,_ Dan thinks _. If this were a math equation, then the sum of the accomplishments we’ve both made, the strides we’ve taken to get here, the support we’ve given each other along the way; the blending of ideas, the fulfillment of attraction, the opportunities and connections we’ve received- the sum of all those parts equals something close to whatever it means to live a personal truth. This connection we have…it’s good. It feels right. It feels like who I am, who I want to be. In this strange little world we’ve created far away from the nagging details of troubles and thoughts I could do without, I see myself._

Dan has no further revelations or thoughts to reflect on other than the even thud of Phil’s heart against his chest. It’s there in this simple, quiet rhythm he finds a blissful reprieve from doubt and whatever larger worries might revisit him in the morning when the world reasserted its usual order of the unforeseen and uncontrollable. For now however, his one unspoken wish is fulfilled in the tight embrace encircling his waist, just as it has been for the better part of nine years, and as they slide down together to rest their heads against the pillow, neither one letting the other go, he finds enough comfort in that single thought to finally close his eyes and slip into easy dreams, only one of which he will remember in the morning. When Phil asks him about it he will say it was nothing really, just a simple dream, one featuring them both in a spacious penthouse overlooking a city skyline where the horizon went on forever and in the golden sunrise of the sky a hawk skimmed over the clouds, confident, content and free.

❧

 

**Author's Note:**

> Exogenesis Symphony was meant to be my last story here, but around Christmas I had the inspiration to start writing this one. I originally meant to post it by the 25th, but a few things, medical and family related, cropped up and I wasn't able to work on it further, so I pushed the deadline to Phil's birthday and obviously of course things still didn't work out until I recently had the time to finish it, or at least I thought I’d done as much with the story as I could, and I decided today was better than never when it came to uploading it.  
> This isn’t a sequel to Exogenesis, so much as it is a kind of alternate universe of the alternate universe that story is set in, featuring the appearance of a few key characters some readers might recognize. It's really meant more as a standalone nod of thanks to everyone who responded in the comments with many inspiring, encouraging words. (more than I thought I deserved at the time.)
> 
> It's also meant as a small note of thanks to the two people who inspired me through many low moments over the past few months, though I’m aware this story makes assumptions about their lives, thoughts, reactions and relationship together, but to emphasize, this story doesn't speak for how I expect them to think or act and it's not intended to be seen as a personal statement that I definitively know who they are irl or as if I'm offering unsolicited 'therapeautic advice' either to them or anyone else, especially when I'm just trying to figure things out for myself one day at a time.  
> It’s merely a fanciful take on all the aspects I admire most about them, written in a way I hope didn’t come across as belittling or preachy.
> 
> To everyone reading this, I hope this Easter/April fool’s day finds you in good spirits or at least I hope this story managed to be a welcome distraction if not and as always, thank you for taking the time to stop by and read it.
> 
> (P.S I had a few problems inserting emojis to go along with the text Phil sends Dan. In previewing everything it seemed alright, but when I posted it I had to quickly go and delete the work to post it again because not only didn't it include the emojis, it erased the rest of the text right after it for some reason. It's not a crucial detail, but for reference, the emojis were basically just a bathtub, a ladybug and a nauseated face.)


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